[Deck] Death and Taxes

[Stevestamopz]

Nice work Iatee! It seems your theorycrafting paid off, especially with regards to Fireslinger + Path in the sideboard.

Congrats!

[c2232]

Excellent run Iatee, I really dig your list..... its familiar but very different with the heavy lean on taxing/no beaters main. My only question is how much you liked the wingmares, I haven't really liked them much but I may need to give them another go.

[iatee]

They have grown on me. I don't think you can not play at least one, since the ability to fetch up a flyer is so useful. With 3 Wingmares, you have the following hatebears g1:

4 Thalia
3 Wingmare
2 Magus
3 Revoker
3 Recruiter-for-whatever

plus
4 Wasteland
4 Port

At this point 23 / 60 cards in the deck have the capability of messing with their mana g1. So yeah, this is definitely Taxes splash death. With 23 mana denial cards, you're also maximizing the amount of two card combos you'll run into - Thalia already great, gets better when you have a Wingmare as your next card, Magus is already great, gets better when you have a Revoker for DRS/Hierarch/Mox, Recruiter lets you get the second piece for either of those pairings. Your chances of hitting at least one of these combos g1 becomes very high, and they are often game winning.

Wingmare is worse vs Eldrazi than pure beaters, but if Eldrazi gets bigger over time the best solution is just to run 4 Magus in the 75. It's not like people are gonna sell their Underground Seas.

Most of the effects that punish you for being so heavy on x/1s are black, so having 3 sb Mirran Crusaders to swap out for the Wingmares was nice.

[iatee]

Another nuance about this build and running Wingmares - the deck contains way more 3s than Mono-W D+T or R/W running Avengers and you blindly tick Vial to 3 fairly quickly. This actually makes Aether Vial a more powerful card, as playing 3 drops for free turn after turn is more powerful than playing 2 drops for free (especially when one of them is Demonic Tutor). That also makes your non-Vial hands a little weaker, but it's not like Serra Avenger is great in non-Vial hands anyway. Cavern also helps you power out the 3 drops for those fair hands and not get tempo'd out by something like Daze - 3 Caverns kinda serve as Vial insurance here.

[c2232]

So let me ask the obvious question, what would you change? It seems like you weren't so hot on three cannonist... Is there anything else you are wavering on?

[iatee]

I think we have to wait an see how the meta shapes up. I think it was mostly a coincidence that I brought in Ethersworn 0/15 times. It comes in for many of our worst matchups and I dodged them. But Chalice on 1 eats a lot of those decks, so who knows, maybe it will be less relevant in the near future.

The only maindeck change I would be making right now is +1 Plains -1 Plateau.

I would maybe SB something like:

3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Fireslinger
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Magus of the Moon
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Rest in Peace
1 Dismember
1 Warping Wail
1 Path to Exile

So vs Eldrazi g2/g3 you'd have:

4 Magus - thanks for playing
3 Mirran Crusader - trade w/ TKS, can't be dismembered, if you can hook up equipment you win
4 STP + PTE - frustratingly goes between being among your best cards to uncastable
1 Dismember - hedge against Chalice
1 Relic-Warder for their Chalice / Needle / etc

This is also very good against Infect and 4 Magus post-board makes things really hard for Lands, which has been growing in popularity. Having 6.5 removal spells post-board helps against all creature decks.

The deck is still soft to Burn, U/R Delver, Jund and a little softer to Elves and Reanimator.

[iatee]

Also, it might be too cute, but this guy is an option vs. Eldrazi:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/c13/20.jpg

Nice outta Vial, wish it killed Goyf.

[Finn]

I thought it might be useful to talk about how DnT started out awful against Zoo but ended up favored by a good bit. It required us to play somewhat unintuitively. You go after Zoo's mana supply even though they seemed to recover when you do. The pauses are enough time to pull ahead before your life runs out. It is possible that Eldrazi can be foughtbthe same way.

Just a thought.

Another speculation is the direction the meta is moving. Every time this happens I try to get the minds together to stay out in front of the change, and it seems time to do this now.

With Eldrazi clearly being a contender, I want to find out who ate the winners and who are the losers with this deck around.

I think Lands beats Eldrazi, so it appears to be on an upswing. Painter also looks like a winner in this environment. What else?

I propose some directional tweaks and changes. I am done messing around with wingmares. Flickerwisps are a definite 4, if they weren't already. Another RIP in the sideboard perhaps. Mangara gains some clout again. My beloved Warping Wails might have to go to the SB. And definitely Ensnaring Bridge in the SB.

Thoughts?

[H]

Not that I think this is a really good idea, but if you put a Basilisk Collar on Thalia or Mirran Crusader they can block Eldrazi all day.

If only it cost :2: and was equip :1: but alas not.

[nevilshute]

I thought it might be useful to talk about how DnT started out awful against Zoo but ended up favored by a good bit. It required us to play somewhat unintuitively. You go after Zoo's mana supply even though they seemed to recover when you do. The pauses are enough time to pull ahead before your life runs out. It is possible that Eldrazi can be foughtbthe same way.

Just a thought.

Another speculation is the direction the meta is moving. Every time this happens I try to get the minds together to stay out in front of the change, and it seems time to do this now.

With Eldrazi clearly being a contender, I want to find out who ate the winners and who are the losers with this deck around.

I think Lands beats Eldrazi, so it appears to be on an upswing. Painter also looks like a winner in this environment. What else?

I propose some directional tweaks and changes. I am done messing around with wingmares. Flickerwisps are a definite 4, if they weren't already. Another RIP in the sideboard perhaps. Mangara gains some clout again. My beloved Warping Wails might have to go to the SB. And definitely Ensnaring Bridge in the SB.

Thoughts?

These are the interesting questions to ask, as I believe fighting the Eldrazi is doable for us, at least to the point where I think we can enter that MU at more or less 50/50.

Lands get a better spot in the meta, as you mention. Not only do they have a positive MU vs Eldrazi, but, in theory, they also stand to gain from ANT much worse off with a Chalice@1 deck at tier one. I consider it possible that we will get an increase in glass cannon combo. ANT players might revert to TES and stuff like Belcher and Tin Fins could come en vogue.

Should this come to pass maybe we need to roll with some Mindbreak Traps in the board? Possibly 3 RIP vs Lands too?

[SecludedGlenn]

If you just want a creature that trades for Goyf and any Eldrazi, then you probably want this one.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/po2/126.jpg

[redtwister]

That's crazy talk. If they have T1 Chalice and you don't get a Vial, Serra Avenger isn't a clock at all. Both Flickerwisp and Avenger can't trade for any of their key creatures if necessary. Imperial Taxes has the ability to get an early lock out win - you can't reliably race Reality Smashers with Avengers that sometimes can't even be cast, and can almost never profitably block.

Again, congratulations, good job. The build was a great choice in such a Lands-heavy tournament. There were greedy mana-bases all over the place and Miracles and Grixis were probably the only top seed deck not quite weak to Magus.

As for your assessment, I do of course respectfully disagree.

T1 Chalice is bad for everyone. We can't Vial or StP, regardless of build. If we kept a 1-lander or the wrong creatures, it is pretty bad. Is it worse for WW than Imperial?

Imperial in this situation...
You can't cast Magus before turn 3, which means they have a very high chance of getting to take it from your hand with Turn 2 or Turn 3 Thought-Knot Seer. If you have to tutor for it, that means turn 4. So they often will get a mana curve of 2-4-6 or even 2-4-6-8 against you, at which point they likely don't care about your Magus. Even if Magus is annoying, every build I have seen runs 2 or more Dismember main and some run up to 4 total main and side plus Ratchet bomb, and as slow as Imperial is, that can get to 3, allowing them to vomit 3 turns of accumulated hate. Magus of the Moon is by no stretch a lock-out win, whether they land T1 Chalice or not, unless they had a bad or at least quite slow keep (and this is in fact one of their weaknesses, that they have no deck manipulation.)

WW on the other hand...
Firstly, I didn't say you could race with Serra Avenger by itself: Having 8 flyers is the big advantage in racing. Further, I emphasized Flickerwisp, not Avenger. Having 4 of them is a big difference over 2. It is more important to be able to Flickerwisp 1) Chalice, 2) Endless One, 3) their mana on an end step, 4) attacking creatures, 5) creatures being targeted with removal. Now, I can't do the last three without vial, but I still have twice as many ways to neutralize a resolved T1 Chalice as you do and if I do, I then have more left over to do those other things. 8 flyers also make equipment unequivocally better.

As a last note, most of them run 4 Wasteland, not 1. Of the two of builds, Imperial is far softer to Wasteland.

So no, it isn't "crazy talk" at all. It is a judicious assessment of the match based on key differences in our tool set. It could be wrong, but 20+ games in against Eldrazi, I don't think so.

@Finn/nevilshute
We shall see.

[iatee]

The 8 flyers are all just as slow if you don't have a Vial. Serra Avengers don't come out til turn 4 and Flickerwisp loses a lot of its value when it's hard-cast turn 3. In both cases I don't see how hard-casting 3 power creatures on turn 3 and 4 can race with a 4/4 on turn 2 and a 5/5 haste on turn 3.

If they have Chalice into TKS on the play, they've attacked you with a 4/4 twice before you've attacked once with your 3/1 flyer. This math just doesn't add up. If you keep a hand full of Flyers and a Vial, and they have the Chalice, you've lost against any decent Eldrazi hand.

[iatee]

Anyway, if you don't think maindecking Blood Moon is strong against this deck, I don't know what to tell you. I have won every game where I've resolved Magus of the Moon.

The deck is frustrating to play against because even when you have 'the right answer', if they have a god hand of TKS, TKS you won't be using it. You need to do something fast, but if your answer cards are exactly one mana, you sometimes can't cast them. There is no *reliable* trump card here, one that punishes them for running a million Sol Lands before they actually get to use them at least a few times. I predict at some point in the future Chalice will get a ban, there's already precedent for it in Vintage.

[Gheizen64]

I think combo decks will either go super fast or SnT. In SnT case, D&T is fine. Super fast combo, on the other hand, need more things like mindbreak trap than taxing effects. In general however, i think those decks will just die too. Super fast combo fold to FoW and T1 thorn/chalice when they're on the draw.

In which case, i think D&T could skew away a bit from anti-combo cards, and play some more cards that control the board. Wingmare and Canonist lose a bit of efficiency, whereas Flickerwisps , Mangara etc... gain a bit of it. Dismember is a good card that can work as Swords 5-6 that isn't effected by Chalice. Leonin Relic-guarder is an option that could go in the maindeck again that provide general utility (exile moxens and the new :r: enchantment vs lands) and is great vs chalices. Ghostly prison is a sb option but probably a bit too slow. Paths get blocked by chalices but are amazing vs the fast starts of the deck (which usually don't involve chalices or thorns). Intrepid hero is a 3 mana creature that kill an eldrazi at every untap, but at 1/1 it get warping wailed easily.

I've tested the Eldrazi deck extensively and i think Eldrazi is slightly unfavored vs D&T. Eldrazi can have some explosive starts, but if they don't, wastelands, ports, strong removal etc... make the game favored every time Eldrazis can't get mimic->TKS->TKS or shit like that. The sideboard options for eldrazis Vs D&T also aren't great and generally slow, while i think D&T can bring in more relevant cards.

Eldrazi lists have a lot of seemingly great MUs that are pretty bad. Delver lists for example if they go first they can easily ride a single delver to victory and counter everything you play with dazes while timewalking you with wastelands. Grixis lists are especially annoying (though not specially unfavorable), while RUG are better but still not greatly favored. The deck lose or win big, like all stompy lists, but you tend remember only the times where you got T1 Chalice'd.

[redtwister]

Three points:
1. Not answering Eldrazi until turn 3 isn't good for either build. (I think we agree)
2. Chalice on 1 with us on the draw is bad for either build. (I think we agree)
3. You introduced the "T1 Chalice" situation, in which you think Imperial is significantly better, because without that assumption, WW is able to race if it can utilize BOTH Serra Avenger AND (ESPECIALLY) Flickerwisp, which then has it's full range of disruption against Eldrazi.

I think you do overestimate Magus, in the greater scheme of things. Magus is a solid card against Eldrazi, but not back-breaking because it does not stop them from casting Mimic, Endless One, Mox Diamond and Dismember, nor does it slow them until turn 3/4.

However, I saw your post after I wrote this and I completely agree with you on this:
"The deck is frustrating to play against because even when you have 'the right answer', if they have a god hand of TKS, TKS you won't be using it. You need to do something fast, but if your answer cards are exactly one mana, you sometimes can't cast them. There is no *reliable* trump card here, one that punishes them for running a million Sol Lands before they actually get to use them at least a few times."

[GrimoirePath]

I only played against Eldrazi three times, and Jitte on a flyer was a superstar. Most good answers do seem to be three drops, from Flickerwisp to Mangara or even Fiend Hunter. Also, depending on their draws, my opponent beat himself pretty hard with Ancient tombs.

As for the storm match up, I might try boarding in some dryad militants (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=289226). Might be relevant against lands or miracles as well.

[iatee]

I admit, I feel like now you are just being obstinate. Obtuse, even.

Three points:
1. Not answering Eldrazi until turn 3 isn't good for either build.
2. Chalice on 1 with us on the draw is bad for either build.
3. You introduced the "T1 Chalice" situation, in which you think Imperial is significantly better, because without that assumption, WW is able to race because of BOTH Serra Avenger AND (ESPECIALLY) Flickerwisp, which then has it's full range of disruption against Eldrazi.

I certainly don't understand why are you fixated on the false idea that I said WW can just race them with no vial in play? I never said "Drop Serra Avenger turn 4 and win the race." Even understanding that you turned this one-sidedly towards T1 Chalice and I did not, the point was that Flickerwisp, even turn 3, gets our StPs back online or kills an Endless One, followed up by the potential to cast removal, chump blockers, Avenger, etc. At that point, 2 or 3 flyers might get us back from the brink. Or it might be too late.

Keeping to your terms, without vial, Imperial has one very kill-able/trample-able/slow to the board advantage in Magus, only two answers to Chalice versus WW's four, and a soft-as-cake manabase to their Wastelands. That's your gameplan. That's it. In the face of T1 Chalice, it is a slow, narrow plan. Slow and narrow is not a good plan for Eldrazi.

Finally, I think you completely underestimate how little Eldrazi decks care, in the greater scheme of things, about a "turn 3 or 4 2/2, dies to creature removal" version of blood moon. Magus is an okay card against Eldrazi, but not back-breaking because it does not stop them from casting Mimic, Endless One, Mox Diamond and Dismember.

What exactly do you think they will be casting with those Mox Diamonds?

Even if the aggro flyers plan were a better strategy for beating Eldrazi, you could switch my list to something like -3 Wingmare -1 Recruiter -1 Revoker/Mangara +2 Flickerwisp, +3 Serra Avenger and suddenly Imperial has aggro flyers *and* Blood Moons. I was playing 4 Flickerwisp until fairly recently, in fact.

Anyway, there is no world in which not playing Blood Moon is gonna be better than playing Blood Moon vs this deck and it's kinda absurdist to pretend otherwise. There are decks where that is not the case, here are some: Burn, Miracles, U/R Delver, Merfolk. You can argue against my specific build in the current meta, but arguing that Magus is only 'okay' is ridiculous. As I said, literally every time I have resolved it I have won, and I have played a fairly large set of matches vs Eldrazi by now.

[redtwister]

What exactly do you think they will be casting with those Mox Diamonds?

Even if the aggro flyers plan were a better strategy for beating Eldrazi, you could switch my list to something like -3 Wingmare -1 Recruiter -1 Revoker/Mangara +2 Flickerwisp, +3 Serra Avenger and suddenly Imperial has aggro flyers *and* Blood Moons. I was playing 4 Flickerwisp until fairly recently, in fact.

Anyway, there is no world in which not playing Blood Moon is gonna be better than playing Blood Moon vs this deck and it's kinda absurdist to pretend otherwise. There are decks where that is not the case, here are some: Burn, Miracles, U/R Delver, Merfolk. You can argue against my specific build in the current meta, but arguing that Magus is only 'okay' is ridiculous. As I said, literally every time I have resolved it I have won, and I have played a fairly large set of matches vs Eldrazi by now.

Probably all you need is this:
-3 Wingmare, +1 Mirran Crusader, +2 Flickerwisp, maybe -1 Recruiter, +1 Magus.

I would not recommend a 3/x-heavy build for RW, unless you do in fact put less emphasis on Recruiter and more on Magus. You would have to tell me how that works out for you.

Okay, last point because I can't help myself, and then I am done:
I absolutely never said "not playing Blood Moon is gonna be better than playing Blood Moon" nor would I because we weren't comparing a bad RW build to a good RW build. WW literally can't play Magus, so it's an illogical statement. My point is that, despite not having Magus, and for particular reasons I pointed out (which was a combination of (much better) flying creatures, more Flickerwisp, resilient mana base), I think WW is slightly better in the match.

[iatee]

The truth is, a lot of people don't want to test this build because Imperial Recruiter is very expensive. That is fine - sensible people probably shouldn't be spending $700 on 3 small pieces of cardboard. D+T is also a deck that a lot of people are playing specifically because it is legacy-cheap.

But honestly, even ignoring Recruiter and tossing a Plateau, some fetches and 2-3 Magus of the Moons into your deck immediately ups your expected win percentage vs Eldrazi. You have the deck's normal win percentage plus a certain % of wins on the spot. I think an otherwise WW deck could fit Magus in the SB at very low cost to its consistency. Not zero cost, but it is nevertheless a net gain. If people aren't testing this as an option, it's purely out of stubbornness / some spiritual dedication to the purity D+T rather than aiming to actually maximize their own win %s.

[redtwister]

"The truth is..." :really:

Also, this is where I would tend towards in a an Eldrazi and Lands meta, with a lot of second-hand BUG X. Not sure it does well versus Grixis Delver, however, but you can't have everything.

Creatures (26)
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Magus of the Moon
2 Imperial Recruiter
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Mangara of Corondor

Lands (23)
2 Arid Mesa
3 Flooded Strand
3 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Plateau
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas

Spells (11)
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard
3 Rest in Peace
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Sudden Demise
2 Containment Priest
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Path to Exile
1 Warping Wail
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

[iatee]

Incidentally, I played a *very* large set of games vs my friend on Grixis Delver with a very similar list. Not joking, probably played like 100 games against him. (He bought Imperial Taxes afterwards because he saw I was having more fun than he was.)

Anyway, I was overwhelmingly favored before sideboard, my Caverns made a lot of his opening FoW/Daze type hands unplayable. If he made his sideboard hateful enough (e.g. something like Dread, Null Rod, Ancient Grudge, Needle, Darkblast) he could turn it into him being a bit favored post-board. So if they have enough of those haymakers their board, I think the matchup ends up being 50-50, if they don't it's favored.

[Plague Sliver]

The truth is, a lot of people don't want to test this build because Imperial Recruiter is very expensive. That is fine - sensible people probably shouldn't be spending $700 on 3 small pieces of cardboard. D+T is also a deck that a lot of people are playing specifically because it is legacy-cheap.

But honestly, even ignoring Recruiter and tossing a Plateau, some fetches and 2-3 Magus of the Moons into your deck immediately ups your expected win percentage vs Eldrazi. You have the deck's normal win percentage plus a certain % of wins on the spot. I think an otherwise WW deck could fit Magus in the SB at very low cost to its consistency. Not zero cost, but it is nevertheless a net gain. If people aren't testing this as an option, it's purely out of stubbornness / some spiritual dedication to the purity D+T rather than aiming to actually maximize their own win %s.

Can I quote this? I guess I just did.

Financial cost should never be a reason to dismiss a card in Legacy. And it's hard to dismiss variations of builds without personally playtesting it. That's the issue I have with some other boards like Salvation -- too much decision-making based on financial cost.

Please, let's stay objective. (And make friends who can lend recruiters for testing.)

[Luca Grease]

Another speculation is the direction the meta is moving. Every time this happens I try to get the minds together to stay out in front of the change, and it seems time to do this now.

With Eldrazi clearly being a contender, I want to find out who ate the winners and who are the losers with this deck around.

I think Lands beats Eldrazi, so it appears to be on an upswing. Painter also looks like a winner in this environment. What else?

I propose some directional tweaks and changes. I am done messing around with wingmares. Flickerwisps are a definite 4, if they weren't already. Another RIP in the sideboard perhaps. Mangara gains some clout again. My beloved Warping Wails might have to go to the SB. And definitely Ensnaring Bridge in the SB.

Thoughts?

As you said, Painter and Lands both stand to gain a lot from this. Decks that just get wrecked by chalice/thorn such as ANT and Elves are presumably going down, which is good for us. I also suspect that some people playing aggressive delver decks will move to more midrangy options such as Shardless Bug which are better equipped to deal with Eldrazi.

As for the sideboard discussion, I think that Council's Judgement and Leonin Relic Warder are a must right now (TNN is another pretty good card against Eldrazi). I have tried going up to 3 RIPs multiple times but I always end up cutting it: while it's something you love in multiples against Lands, siding all 3 in fair matchups like BUG or Loam has too often left me in a passive role while I get Delvered or Lilianaed to dust. I have gone back to Wilt Leaf Liege since Liliana, Hymn, and -1-1 effects require a more proactive/muscular approach in my experience. Cheating it in when plowing a reality smasher is just icing on the cake.

[redtwister]

Can I quote this? I guess I just did.

Financial cost should never be a reason to dismiss a card in Legacy. And it's hard to dismiss variations of builds without personally playtesting it. That's the issue I have with some other boards like Salvation -- too much decision-making based on financial cost.

Please, let's stay objective. (And make friends who can lend recruiters for testing.)

I'm confused. Who is this addressed to? No one here dismissed the cards because of cost. iatee speculated some unspecified people might do that, but many people here (including myself) were early adopters and testers of Imperial. I still consider it my backup variant of choice.

@iatee re:Grixis
That makes a lot of sense and my experience is the same. I ran into Grixis running a lot more DnT hate back when I ran it, but the builds in Philadelphia ran very little of it.

@everyone
I think Painter isn't that good, despite seeming like it might be. They need to keep Painter alive (harder than it looks since it dies to Warping Wail as well as Dismember, which are combined 5-6 in the main of most builds and 6-8 post-board) and hit Grindstone on curve, without getting Revokered. None of the Eldrazi people here are too worried about Painter.

Lands is much worse, and I think a lot of their sideboard development is oriented towards it and maybe Grixis Delver.

[Marungo]

I'm confused. Who is this addressed to? No one here dismissed the cards because of cost. iatee speculated some unspecified people might do that, but many people here (including myself) were early adopters and testers of Imperial. I still consider it my backup variant of choice

I think that it was never explicitly said, but there's certainly an impact that the price has. I tested it briefly before giving it up because I knew I'd never get imperials and never want to play a suboptimal list. The statement is likely more towards the issue that less people talk about or acknowledge imperial taxes because they know they can never afford it or play it. I think this is the difference between the source and salvation though. Source is more focused on card choices, and strategies, while salvation can sometimes delve a little too deep into budgeting and more casual ideas. Nothing wrong with that of course but that's my best understanding of what he meant

[Plague Sliver]

I'm confused. Who is this addressed to? No one here dismissed the cards because of cost. iatee speculated some unspecified people might do that, but many people here (including myself) were early adopters and testers of Imperial. I still consider it my backup variant of choice.


It wasn't addressed to anyone here specifically. Sorry if it came across that way.

It was a rant directed against the Salvation boards, and why I have a hard time taking 80% of the content there seriously. When every other post is "what's a good substitute for Karakas..."

Staying on topic, I actually like the green splash a great deal. Played against it, seemed strong with the Carpet of Flowers / SoWap synergy.

---

And on a different note, I wrote about my experiences playing Magic in China, and how I picked up D&T for the first time here:

http://writtenbyjames.com/2016/03/02/magic-the-addiction-excerpt-4-on-china/

[iatee]

I think this is the difference between the source and salvation though. Source is more focused on card choices, and strategies, while salvation can sometimes delve a little too deep into budgeting and more casual ideas. Nothing wrong with that of course but that's my best understanding of what he meant

Yeah, pretty much.

Funny thing is - I don't see why this build wouldn't have been highly competitive years ago too (exception made for Treasure Cruise era, where it would be pretty awful) and I think it's just been 'waiting to be discovered' mostly due to the high cost of Recruiters. If they reprint it in EMA (decent chance that happens) hopefully more people will be willing to test this competitively.

Until then I'm not gonna fault anyone for not wanting to spend serious money on a few pieces of cardboard w/ '1/1' written at the bottom. D+T is a deck some people pick specifically *because* they don't want to spend too much money on a legacy deck and this build is actually more expensive than some T1 blue decks. I will however roll my eyes when they say Magus isn't that good against Eldrazi.

[redtwister]

"Magus is a solid card against Eldrazi, but not back-breaking" = "isn't that good against Eldrazi."? Really? That's like confusing "I like M&M's, but they aren't my favorite candy" with "M&M's aren't very good."

As I said "The deck is frustrating to play against because even when you have 'the right answer', if they have a god hand of TKS, TKS you won't be using it. You need to do something fast, but if your answer cards are exactly one mana, you sometimes can't cast them. There is no *reliable* trump card here, one that punishes them for running a million Sol Lands before they actually get to use them at least a few times."

Holy cow, wait, that was you! And yes, I find having my statements distorted extremely annoying. This is a DnT Community forum, not the U.S. presidential debates; we ought to have standards.

Amazingly, the DnT deck that made it to 18th seems like a very... questionable... build.

Creatures 25
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Containment Priest
2 Flickerwisp
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
2 Serra Avenger
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Mangara of Corondor
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Lands 24
8 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Karakas

Spells 11
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 Judge's Familiar
1 Rest in Peace
1 Serenity
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Cataclysm
2 Council's Judgment

Odd Creature Choices:
Containment Priest and Spirit of the Labyrinth, but only 2 Flickerwisp in WW??

Odd Lands Choices:
4 Karakas with only 1 Mangara?
Eiganjo Castle? That's some time travel stuff.

Odd sideboard choices:
Serenity?? In a format without Affinity? Dude really, really hates MUD. I wish I had it, but I play 2-3 MUD decks in the first 5 matches of every big tournament, so...
Judge's Familiar??? Like Eiganjo Castle, this is some throwback tech.
1 RiP in a format with a ton of ways to destroy it? Too courageous for me.

And still 18th place at a very tough tournament.

[iatee]

Well, you actually said "Magus is an okay card against Eldrazi, but not back-breaking" and edited the quote to "solid card" afterwards. I know this because I quoted your original post in my response.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that that D+T list is not optimal, but you don't always get punished for running slightly sub-optimal lists. Tournaments are pretty small sample sets overall.

If I were running mono-W I would definitely not be playing Horizon Canopy in the near future, and two is really pushing it. Having one in your opening hand vs Eldrazi and doing 3-4 damage to yourself can really make a difference. You're less likely to be punished for tossing in a Castle, even over the course of 45 games, though the card really isn't very good, even in Modern.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

Well, you actually said "Magus is an okay card against Eldrazi, but not back-breaking" and edited the quote to "solid card" afterwards. I know this because I quoted your original post in my response.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that that D+T list is not optimal, but you don't always get punished for running slightly sub-optimal lists. Tournaments are pretty small sample sets overall.

If I were running mono-W I would definitely not be playing Horizon Canopy in the near future, and two is really pushing it. Having one in your opening hand vs Eldrazi and doing 3-4 damage to yourself can really make a difference. You're less likely to be punished for tossing in a Castle, even over the course of 45 games, though the card really isn't very good, even in Modern.
Horizon Canopy isn't good in modern?
We gotta get this guy out of the internet. He doesnt know what hes talking about.

[Marungo]

The true mistake is pretending as though modern is a real format. It's a common error by those who give it a glance and never delve in.

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

The true mistake is pretending as though modern is a real format. It's a common error by those who give it a glance and never delve in.

Modern is a real format, I have delved into it, and have greatly enjoyed it up until the Eldrazi started dominating.

[iatee]

Horizon Canopy isn't good in modern?
We gotta get this guy out of the internet. He doesnt know what hes talking about.

Reread my sentence, I was referring to Eiganjo Castle.

[PortOnUpkeep]

SCG Legacy Classic Report:


My Decklist:

10 Plains
2 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Cavern of Souls
(23)

4 Æther Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
(7)

4 Swords to Plowshares
(4)

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Flickerwisp
3 Serra Avenger
2 Vryn Wingmare
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Mirran Crusader
(26)

Sideboard:
2 Cataclysm
2 Rest in Peace
2 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Council's Judgement
1 Pithing Needle
1 Containment Priest
1 Path to Exile
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Warping Wail
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Mirran Crusader
(15)

So, this was my first reasonably sized tournament with D&T (and my first big legacy event). I'd been playing D&T seriously for about 5 months between proxy games and cockatrice beforehand, and I'd been lurking on this thread.

Round 1: 2-0 vs Reanimator

G1 he fumbles around looking for gas while I establish a Mom and a Revoker on Vryn's Prodigy. I eventually suit up the Revoker with Sword before he finally lands an Elesh. I untap, play the Karakas I'd been saving, and swing lethal.

G2 I go Mom into Thalia and he reanimates an Inkwell. I keep drawing into lands and we go back and forth swinging out and passing. He swings until I'm one leviathan attack from lethal and passes. Luckily, he's on 4 and I'd drawn warping wail and cast it on scion mode which would up my power on board to 4. He tanks, then realizes that forcing it also just leaves him dead, and scoops.

Round 2: 1-2 vs Infect

G1 I keep my seven with two wastes, a plains, Thalia, Vial, mom, and IIRC Flickerwisp. He mulls to 5 and probes my hand before sighing and playing an inkmoth. I waste it and pass. The next four turns consist of me drawing another waste and wasting the next two inkmoths he plays. He fails to find another land and Thalia and Revoker eventually beat him to death.

G2 I keep a hand with Path and StP, but he counters both, and I die to a giant glistener elf

G3 Is close, but he is able to get out 4 hierarchs before getting them revoked. This would've been great, but the 4 exalted triggers on his blighted agent made short work of me.

Round 3: 0-2 vs Elves

I don't quite remember everything about these games, but I got stomped as is typical against elves.

Round 4: 2-0 vs ANT

G1 Mom->Thalia->Wingmare is able to effectively shut off his cantrips before I waste his only two lands and finish him off.

G2 I keep 6 with Grafdigger's, Canonist, and Revoker. He can't answer them, and I get there with Canonist and Revoker beats.

Round 5: 0-2 vs Elves

G1 I get Hoof'd for lethal after playing a mom and Revoker on Heritage Druid.

G2 He NO'd for progenitus, but was unable to beat a T3 crusader swinging past it.

G3 NO'd Progenitus kills me after I fail to draw any answers.

Round 6: 1-2 vs Esper Mentor (splashing green for DRS)

G1 Possibly the best match I've ever played with D&T. After 30 minutes of back and forth and just barely answering Goyfs, a mentor, and a Jace I'm able to vial in a crusader, untap and arm it with with Batterskull for lethal.

G2 I draw 7 straight lands and die to seemingly infinite monk tokens

G3 Goes similarly after he answers all my threats and drops a mentor. I also punted this one by wasting wasting incorrectly, but such is life.

Round 7: 2-0 VS MUD

G1 Spirit takes care of Portal while Flickerwisp carries a Jitte to victory

G2 I get him to 7 with Serra Avenger and Flickerwisp while revoking his Metalworker. He plays Forgemaster and passes. I drop another Revoker on Forgemaster and he concedes

All in all, I went 3-4, but I had a great time and got to see some interesting lines of play I hadn't before. I really need to practice the infect matchup as well as the one for miracles (though I didn't see it in the event), as they seem very grindy, but very winnable.

Since then, I've replaced the Wingmares with another crusader and a fourth Flickerwisp, as Wingmare always felt way too slow. I've also thought about running Sword of W&P in the SB, but I'm still not sold on it. I've also contemplated running a Dismember somewhere as extra advantage against Gurmag and Eldrazi, but again, I'm still not certain.

I apologize in advance for any typos or errors-- I just finished exams and I'm half dead. Also, thanks for all the advice you've all posted!

[L10]

Alright, here's my SCG Philly report. I went 10-4-1.
...
1 Fireslinger - Came in vs D+T, was useful.
...
R7 - D+T (2-1) (5-1-1)

G1 - Sat near this guy all day and he kept joking about how we'd play - so we both know what we're facing. He's on the play and T2 SFM. I have some things I can do to avoid it getting online immediately but eventually it's online and I can't come back. Bring in Warping Wails, Path, Relic Warder, Fireslinger, Mirran Crusaders. Take out Thalias / Wingmares.

G2 - Long game, he has a Batterskull + 2 Moms out early and starts getting ahead on life. He gets a Sword of War and Peace into play, which seems like it should be insane against me but it actually does quite little in the end, since life swings don't matter as much as the board state and I don't mind when he hits me with it. I Revoker his Moms, Firesling them, eventually Firesling my own Revoker to get my own Mom back online, and take over the game.

G3 - Short game, goes to time, I am heavily ahead and get a Mirran Crusader + equipment out to kill him in turns.

You are my hero. Good Ol' '98 tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQuXalg4PKs

[GoblinTurkey]

You are my hero. Good Ol' '98 tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQuXalg4PKs

Why Fireslinger over Goblin Sharpshooter?

I understand Sharpshooter costs one more, but it's repeatable and doesn't hurt you in the process.

[Stevestamopz]

Why Fireslinger over Goblin Sharpshooter?

I understand Sharpshooter costs one more, but it's repeatable and doesn't hurt you in the process.

Cos Human and costing 1 less is pretty relevant against the decks you want that effect against (infect, elves, mirror etc). I'll be playing Fireslinger in my sideboard for the Legacy side events at GP Melbourne this weekend. I'm sad to let my beloved Sharpshooter go but I think it's the right call at the moment. Inb4 I get blown out by Pyromancer and Monks :tongue:

[iatee]

There's a few reasons:
1. 2 drop. Vs. Infect and Elves, getting a pinger in play one turn earlier can be very relevant since you have so few turns.
2. I'm playing 3 Cavern of Souls and Fireslinger is a human. So it's easier to have mana for it with my manabase, and when you draw well you have it uncounterable T2 vs Infect, which is gonna be game over vs anything but their fastest starts.
3. Sharpshooter can't kill anything with an active Mother of Runes in play - which is one of the very reasons you want a pinger. Infect also just needs to hold up one protection spell.
4. There's no cool promo Sharpshooter

Overall, Sharpshooter is a little better vs Elves, Fireslinger is a *lot* better vs Infect and they're maybe about even vs D+T (killing Mom early vs. wiping a clogged board with no Moms). But Fireslinger is a *lot* better with my particular manabase, and I want to be able to blindly name Cavern on human and then never have to worry about red mana again.

[c2232]

Overall, Sharpshooter is a little better vs Elves, Fireslinger is a *lot* better vs Infect and they're maybe about even vs D+T (killing Mom early vs. wiping a clogged board with no Moms). But Fireslinger is a *lot* better with my particular manabase, and I want to be able to blindly name Cavern on human and then never have to worry about red mana again.

I agree that Fireslinger is better than Sharpshooter, but, what about Sparkmage? it has the same time line as Fireslinger.

[iatee]

1. Against Elves/Infect, keeping Vial on 2 is important since all of your key pieces for them are 2s.
2. Sometimes you may have a great Vial hand but not a 3rd land drop (or might need to use a Wasteland).
3. No promo Cunning Sparkmage.
4. Life loss doesn't matter vs. Infect, which is the matchup this improves the most. The life loss is a little relevant vs D+T, but you're the one with a pinger on board so you're probably doing alright. Sparkmage is probably better overall vs D+T for the surprise factor out of a Vial mid-combat.

Overall I would guess that the cards end up being fairly equivalent and the lifeloss mostly doesn't matter but once in a while does, and the extra mana mostly doesn't matter but once in a while does.

[c2232]

3. No promo Cunning Sparkmage.

Well I believe this debate settled :laugh:

[iatee]

https://www.chaoscards.co.uk/images/magic-the-gathering-promotional-friday-night-single-card-024-fireslinger-p92515-94874_medium.jpg

Now that the raw power of this card has been unleashed, I fully expect the promo to spike to $100, highly suggest everyone buy in now.

[Gheizen64]

Damn i remember playing Fireslinger in my ponza lists back in what... 1999? Avalanche Riders and Fireslingers, Kindle, so good.

[appleseiter15]

Hi, everyone! I've been lurking here for a little while because I just bought into Death and Taxes in Legacy. I played a few smaller tournaments outside my town and loved the deck and did quite well considering it was my first time playing legacy! I also love playing on cockatrice. However, to my horror, I discovered the only LGS that hosts legacy regularly near me, the meta consists of... get ready for this... 3 Elves, 2 TES, and 1 Burn. The burn isn't the worst thing in the world, and I usually enjoy that matchup but Elves and TES are just gross. Occasionally Painter, Miracles, and Sneak and Show pop up, but I have exclusively played against Elves and TES the last three weeks...

Bearing in mind that I do not have the means to build any other legacy deck, and also that I just really love D and T and want to get practice with it, how would you build D and T as optimally as possible for this meta?

If it helps I do have the stuff for Imperial Taxes, if you believe that would be the optimal build!

Thanks, everyone!

[from Cairo]

LOL 4 mb Ethersworn Canonist to start.

[iatee]

That's a naturally rough meta for D+T, but you can build the deck to be favored.

Imperial Taxes is a lot better vs Elves when you want it to be, since you can play one sided 2 mana boardwipes in the SB. How you build kinda just depends on how much you want to stack your maindeck and whether you're gonna create some local arms race if you do.

Things you want:
- 4 Ethersworn in the 75. If you have been playing these decks 100% of the time, you want 1+ main, since it's fantastic against all of them.
- 4 Sudden Demise in the SB. Conveniently helps you beat the TES T1 Goblin plan, which is one of the better ways to beat us. Most likely you go beyond 4 pyroclasm effects, since you really want to hit them g2/g3 vs Elves.
- 2 Containment Priest in the 75. Toss one in the main and you can fetch it with Recruiter g1.

Here's what I would try:

26 Creatures:
4 Thalia
4 SfM
4 Mom
3 Mirran Crusader (Good clock vs TES/Burn and untouchable vs Elves)
2 Wingmare (Good vs TES/Burn)
3 Recruiter (Stack Tax effects vs Storm, SfM, Priest or Canonist vs Elves, sideboarded Kor Firewalker vs Burn)
3 Ethersworn Canonist (Great against all those decks, so why not go crazy)
1 Magus of the Moon (TES has Mana rocks/basic Swamp, only good if Elves gets greedy, terrible vs Burn - but having one in the 75 can be useful)
1 Containment Priest
1 Aven Mindcensor (Good vs Storm/Elves, not a great card in general)

0 Flickerwisp seems crazy, but it's not an essential card against any of these decks and pretty bad when you don't have Vial.

Normal non-creature spells:
4 Vial
4 StP
Jitte/Bskull/Sofi

Manabase:

You can build it in 3 ways
- Prioritizing having t2 Red vs Elves (and TES)
- Giving yourself the maximum chance to bounce Thalia / play around Massacre vs TES
- Ensuring you can't get PoP'd for a million vs Burn

"Genuinely don't care about burn, just want to beat Elves" build. Take out Magus:
4 Wasteland
4 Port
4 Plateau
2 Karakas
9 Fetch

"I really hate Massacre":
4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Karakas
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Plateau
1 Plains
6 Fetch

"I though this was a white deck":
4 Wasteland
4 Port
2 Karakas
5 Plains
1 Plateau
7 Fetch


SB could be something like:

4 Sudden Demise
2 Electrickery
1 Containment Priest
1 Warping Wail (Better if you're going with Caverns main.)
4 Kor Firewalker (Might as well hedge vs that Burn deck)
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric

This build is pretty bad against fair creature decks and the SB is especially warped. But it's gonna win a lot in your meta. Another option that would be decent in your meta is a Dead Guy Ale build with Thoughtseize effects, Zealous Persecution, Bob, sb Orzhov Pontiff. Honestly, because you have very little there to punish you for a second (or even third) color, not splashing something means you're showing up with a weaker deck for no real reason.

[iatee]

Two 5-0s for Imperial online this week:

Bahra running his traditional list: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/383340#online
nmks running the same 60 I played at the Open, with a slightly tweaked SB: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/384053#online

Is nmks a source poster? I would like to hear how the SB worked for him.

I am glad someone else is trying the 3 Caverns. While all Imperial builds are favored vs a stock Miracles list, with this build I am genuinely excited when I see an opponent go Island, Top. This build puts this deck into the same territory as Goblins or Merfolk for them. My tournament record vs my friend who is a strong Miracles player: 9-3-2.

[appleseiter15]

That's a naturally rough meta for D+T, but you can build the deck to be favored.

Imperial Taxes is a lot better vs Elves when you want it to be, since you can play one sided 2 mana boardwipes in the SB. How you build kinda just depends on how much you want to stack your maindeck and whether you're gonna create some local arms race if you do.

Things you want:
- 4 Ethersworn in the 75. If you have been playing these decks 100% of the time, you want 1+ main, since it's fantastic against all of them.
- 4 Sudden Demise in the SB. Conveniently helps you beat the TES T1 Goblin plan, which is one of the better ways to beat us. Most likely you go beyond 4 pyroclasm effects, since you really want to hit them g2/g3 vs Elves.
- 2 Containment Priest in the 75. Toss one in the main and you can fetch it with Recruiter g1.

Here's what I would try:

26 Creatures:
4 Thalia
4 SfM
4 Mom
3 Mirran Crusader (Good clock vs TES/Burn and untouchable vs Elves)
2 Wingmare (Good vs TES/Burn)
3 Recruiter (Stack Tax effects vs Storm, SfM, Priest or Canonist vs Elves, sideboarded Kor Firewalker vs Burn)
3 Ethersworn Canonist (Great against all those decks, so why not go crazy)
1 Magus of the Moon (TES has Mana rocks/basic Swamp, only good if Elves gets greedy, terrible vs Burn - but having one in the 75 can be useful)
1 Containment Priest
1 Aven Mindcensor (Good vs Storm/Elves, not a great card in general)

0 Flickerwisp seems crazy, but it's not an essential card against any of these decks and pretty bad when you don't have Vial.

Normal non-creature spells:
4 Vial
4 StP
Jitte/Bskull/Sofi

Manabase:

You can build it in 3 ways
- Prioritizing having t2 Red vs Elves (and TES)
- Giving yourself the maximum chance to bounce Thalia / play around Massacre vs TES
- Ensuring you can't get PoP'd for a million vs Burn

"Genuinely don't care about burn, just want to beat Elves" build. Take out Magus:
4 Wasteland
4 Port
4 Plateau
2 Karakas
9 Fetch

"I really hate Massacre":
4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Karakas
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Plateau
1 Plains
6 Fetch

"I though this was a white deck":
4 Wasteland
4 Port
2 Karakas
5 Plains
1 Plateau
7 Fetch


SB could be something like:

4 Sudden Demise
2 Electrickery
1 Containment Priest
1 Warping Wail (Better if you're going with Caverns main.)
4 Kor Firewalker (Might as well hedge vs that Burn deck)
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric

This build is pretty bad against fair creature decks and the SB is especially warped. But it's gonna win a lot in your meta. Another option that would be decent in your meta is a Dead Guy Ale build with Thoughtseize effects, Zealous Persecution, Bob, sb Orzhov Pontiff. Honestly, because you have very little there to punish you for a second (or even third) color, not splashing something means you're showing up with a weaker deck for no real reason.

Wow! Thank you so much for your thorough thoughts! I would be interested in looking at a build of deadguy ale! What is a list that you like?

[iatee]

This list with some tweaks would be a good starting point:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11391&d=264668&f=LE

[Stevestamopz]

Went 3-1-1 at the GP side event today playing R/W.

1-2 Burn (rough mulligans in all 3 games)
2-0 Punishing Maverick
1-1 Ponder Miracles
2-0 Doomsday
2-0 Lossett Miracles

Not having played Taxes for a while and never playing Comp REL, I got 2 GRV's for forgetting about Thalia in Rounds 1 and 3 (completely my fault, I got a bit loose upstairs) and when I tried to use Rishadan Port with a Humility and Magus of the Moon out - which doesn't work as it turns out- my 3rd GRV gave me a game loss, and thus ended the match in a draw. I thought it was a bit heavy-handed given that the Judge watching had to look up the rule on his phone but eh, them's the breaks.

I'd won a really good game 1 after about 40 minutes and the judge ruling happened during "turns" (time limit had run out) so game 3 never happened. My opponent was nowhere close to winning which makes it even more frustrating, although I appreciate that rules are rules and knowing the rules is just as important as building/playing your deck.

Anyway, the list:

4 Æther Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Flickerwisp
2 Imperial Recruiter
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
2 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath

SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Fireslinger
SB: 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 1 Magus of the Moon
SB: 1 Manic Vandal
SB: 1 Mirran Crusader
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 3 Warping Wail

List was pretty cool, I liked having the 2nd Crusader in the board and Warping Wail was great, although I could see only playing 2 and having something for burn. I fucking hate that deck.

[zebhillard]

Played Imperial Recruiter several times in side events over the weekend of GP Detroit, loved the list and did fairly well but I do think the Flagstones need to go. Having 4 actual Plains main is better than the benefit from a Flagstones being destroyed. My sb accidentally had. P&K Nalar in it because I got some sleeved cards mixed up, but it was a rock star every time I brought it in.

[iatee]

Yeah, I don't think any RW list can afford any copy of Flagstones. You don't need to be running Cataclysm/Geddeon SB effects anyway since the maindeck is better vs Miracles already and any Lands-based-decks are now favored due to Magus.

Also, flipped Delver now has converted mana cost of 1:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/shadows-over-innistrad-mechanics

Relevant for us as Ratchet Bomb gets marginally less appealing.

[zebhillard]

Yeah, I don't think any RW list can afford any copy of Flagstones. You don't need to be running Cataclysm/Geddeon SB effects anyway since the maindeck is better vs Miracles already and any Lands-based-decks are now favored due to Magus.

Agreed, completely. Though, I think I'll still run a Cataclysm in the board as a wrath effect along with two or three Sudden Demise as sweepers.

Odd thought, at there any creatures with Horsemanship worth playing as an 'unblockable' attacker, or is it just not worth it?

Update: Planning on hitting a local this Sunday with an Unlimited Timetwister for 1st and duals down through the top 8. This is what I'm on currently, but I'd appreciate some advice and comments. The local meta is all over the place and generally fairly wide open, so anything could be expected to show up.


4 Flickerwisp
2 Imperial Recruiter
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
4 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath


Sideboard
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Rest in Peace
3 Sudden Demise
1 Cataclysm
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Pithing Needle
1 Rachet Bomb
1 Manriki-Gusari

[iatee]

The only horsemanship creature that isn't behind curve is the 2W 2/2. Regular flying creatures serve as both evasion + blockers for Delvers etc. - so a 2/2 vanilla flyer is probably a little stronger than a vanilla 2/2 with horsemanship.

Suggestions for your deck:

- Swap the Nalaars to the sideboard for the 3rd Magus. Magus is best in g1s and gets worse in grindier games where they can fetch basics, Nalaars are very good in grindier g2/g3 where you want pure value cards - but worse in fast g1s where you want mana denial and cards you can actually cast.

- Swap Manriki-Gusari for a Leonin Relic-Warder. While generally not as good vs D+T (though sometimes it will be t2 nab their Vial, game over) and definitely not as good vs Stoneblade, it can come in for a lot of other matches beyond those two.

- Not everyone likes Wingmare as much as I do, but I find that having at least one to fetch when you want it to be useful. Lets you fetch something with evasion, block a Delver in a pinch, or set up a Thalia/stax game. You could cut one Flickerwisp or only play 2 Maguses main to make room for it.

Overall I don't think you're playing any bad cards and I would feel fine showing up to a tournament with that list.

[Finn]

The meta is on the verge of a major shakeup, I think. I bet that Thing in the Ice is the real deal. I also think that Flickerwisp is the bane of the card as it flies over the ice and screws with their tempo afterward, especially with a Vial. But Eldrazi looks strong also. Between the two some decks are going to get squeezed out. I don't want it to be this one. Does anyone have any updated info on the Eldrazi matchup? There are so many more versions now than when I was testing.

[zebhillard]

Does anyone have any updated info on the Eldrazi matchup? There are so many more versions now than when I was testing.

I played against Eldrazi multiple times over the weekend and never once felt at all behind. I was playing r/w though, and Magus of the Moon is the serious deal in that game. Keeping them off Sol Land mana and Revokering their slow answers is just good, and Jitte is outstanding to deal with Mimics

[Marungo]

Does anyone have any updated info on the Eldrazi matchup? There are so many more versions now than when I was testing.

I will say as someone who really thought this was a bad matchup, I now want to concur with the consensus that this is a slightly favored matchup. Not by much, but still favored. I went to fnm and played it on a feature match and won 2-1. I made some embarrassing misplays in games 2 and 3 and still won the match. I think a few key points to understand are that wasting and denying them on mana is a great strategy early in the game as they're far more mana starved than you would think. You also can just flood the board and go wide against them and they really can't punish you in any way for it as they have, at best, 6 removal spells.

I would say the goal vs them is to, if possible, keep them from casting anything above 4 mana. All their cards that cost <4 are just bad and not worth worrying about. Sure chalice is just going to get us sometimes but most of the time it doesn't warp our gameplan that much. When it comes to equipment jitte and batterskull are great but I think jitte is the best. One last thing to note is this: Wingmare builds simply cannot win. If you are preparing for eldrazi at all then you should be playing a build with crusaders and avengers. I played both vs eldrazi and the difference is LARGE.

Don't know if any of this information is new aside from the thought process of going after their lands as much as possible (someone said only waste eye and I totally disagree), but I felt it was worth throwing in my two cents.

[Koke_MTG]

The Eldrazi matchup is good for us I think. I am playing mono-white D&T with playset of Vryn Wingmare and even with this list, that over paper seems bad to fight Eldrazi, is a really favorable matchup.

5-1 is actually my record against Eldrazi. Only lost a round in wich my opponent found pretty frecuently his copies of Umezawa's Jitte and multiple Phyrexian Revokers as well, but I have won games against them even eating 3 Thought-Knot Seer or other games racing a Seer and a couple of Reality Smasher.

I think D&T is one of the best decks to race in the format, so I don't find reasons to worry about this matchup.

[iatee]

I find the matchup annoying because, even while statistically favored overall (especially for RW), their very good hands don't give you much opportunity to outplay them. The game feels super dependent on whether or not they drew a very powerful opening 7, t2 Thought Knot Seer being the most brutal opening.

Your 8 most important cards (Vial/STP) may or may not be castable on the draw due to Chalice. G1 if you have a 7 card hand with a Vial, STP, 2 lands and 3 creatures, it might either be a fantastic hand or a not great hand, and it's totally gonna be due to dumb luck. You can't mull that hand, but the hand is like 65% to win if they don't have it and 35% if they do and there's roughly a 40% chance they'll have it. In other games, you'll draw zero 0 drops and they'll draw into multiple Chalices and you have an easy game of magic against a bunch of dead cards.

Racing them becomes much easier when they have Ancient Tomb hands. Sometimes they do and you get 8 free damage and the fact that they're hitting with bigger creatures barely matters since you need to do so little damage. Other times they don't and they get to curve out painlessly. SfM for Batterskull is generally very good, sometimes they have Thought Knot Seer and you now have a Squire. Other times they don't, and you win.

Wasteland their Eye of Ugin can win the game - or they can just play the second Eye of Ugin that was stuck in their hand and you've lost tempo in the race. Kinda like the STP/Vial keep, this is one of those 'right decisions' that you nevertheless end up getting brutally punished for a certain % of the time.

None of these events happen consistently so you can't plan any game or sideboard strategy around it. The only constant is that their mana is greedy - if the deck remains as popular as it was during the last SCG Open, I might try and squeeze 4 Magus in my 75, since Magus is a haymaker that also is great against lots of other decks.

[GrimoirePath]

I am king of the spice, and played some more test games against eldrazi, trying out Fiend Hunter and Preacher. I was actually able to win with Preacher after OP gave me an Eldrazi mimic and i equipped it with Batterskull. Finally lost the mimic and equipped Preacher with the Batterskull, which was awesome because i could attack with vigilance, then still tap to steal a creature when he played one.

Sometimes their turn two is a monster: Eye of Ugin, Mimic, Mimic, tap Tomb for a TKS. I am not running Wingmares when I go to Indy. More Avengers, likely.

[p_spk]

This got spoiled. Not sure what to think. Might be too cute. Opinions?

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160309/2d8689a23f074aa2fb84cf4b30b718a6.jpg

[zebhillard]

This got spoiled. Not sure what to think. Might be too cute. Opinions?

I think it's still better to rely on SoF&I to draw cards when you need it, most of the time your mana is tied up in shutting theirs down, and taking a turn off to pay 2W to get a Squire and draw a card isn't really worth it.

[Luca Grease]

I bet that Thing in the Ice is the real deal. I also think that Flickerwisp is the bane of the card as it flies over the ice and screws with their tempo afterward, especially with a Vial. .

I have to disagree here. As much as I love the flavor of that card, I don't think it's going to see much play (if any) in legacy. The bouncing effect suggests "control", but this card is a horrible topdeck, which is something control decks generally dislike. And once it flips, it's a big dumb vanilla beater with no evasion, a young pyromancer/monastery mentor/baleful strix/mother of runes is gonna make it look pretty silly. Sure, it will usually be able to get a free hit in, but its fragility lack of speed make it unfit for aggressive decks imo. Considering it requires some investment, dying to every removal spell in the format but bolt (including warping wail) is also not the best qualification. Unless some deck can really break the bounce effect, this is basically just a bigger, slower, overall much worse, tarmogoyf.

If I am proven wrong and this does become a thing, then we shouldn't worry too much as DnT players, as we can plow it, flicker it back into the ice, fly over it, lock it with mom, evade/block it with sofi, race it with batterskull, mangara it away, and so on and so forth. Also worth noting that it doesn't bounce revoker, which might be very relevant if it ends up in a combo/control shell.

[iatee]

I think the Inspector will be a pretty solid limited card. It might see fringe Standard play.

Very much not playable in Modern and Legacy. Even if it were 1/2 W that cantripped immediately and for free, we don't have a deck that can abuse that outside out Flickerwisp, and the drawback of worse-mulligan-decisions is not insignificant when you're one of the only strong legacy decks with no card filtering. D+T is not gonna out value the value decks, so it's better to just make sure they can't actually cast their value cards.

I think Thing is 'a real card' but whatever shell is built around it won't be strong against D+T since it's going to be blue cantrip heavy and creature light.

[c2232]

I think Thing in the Ice could be legit in a Storm sideboard card, they would be happy with just the bounce as well as the early blocker. I'm sure it will at least be tested.

[nmks]

nmks running the same 60 I played at the Open, with a slightly tweaked SB: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/384053#online

Is nmks a source poster? I would like to hear how the SB worked for him.


Yo, actually registered here a few days ago. But I have been reading this thread for a while though. Nice record at the Open by the way, congratulations!

I played against Eldrazis, Shardless BUG, Miracles, Grixis Delver and Grixis Delver w/ Decays. My feelings about the sideboard:

Path was nice to take in against everything else than Miracles but didn't feel necessary in the end.
Containment Priest was not needed in these matches, but I think it's still a must since it locks N. Order from Elves (which is almost always a gg) and is good against many other decks as well.
I usually have 4 Canonists in the 75 since it's just so good against Storm and does something against Elves and Infect as well. Didn't need them much in this run, but I did board some of them in against Miracles for some reason.
I don't think I have to explain the reason for the RiPs. I don't know if 2 copies would be enough, but 3 copies have felt right everytime during boarding and while playing.
Tested 3 Holy Lights since there's a higher probability of drawing one and a white source than drawing a Sudden Demise and a red source. Mainly against Elves. Did board these in against Pyromancer decks to see if it would do anything against the deck, but they just got Cabal Therapied away. I think Demise is still better even though there are fewer color sources for it. Against Infect it costs 1 less to cast (Daze), kills flipped Delver, kills DRS & Nettle Sentinel against Elves.
The third Magus in the board helped a lot in this run. Have considered running 4 in the 75 because there's so many Eldrazis in MtGO currently. Otherwise I think 3 is enough.
This time I played Oblivion Ring over Council's Judgment because I added a Cavern to the manabase. Being a "removable removal" wasn't a drawback this time.
SoWaP has been good against Miracles. It makes opponent to use a Terminus instead of a Plow if it has equipped successfully, assuming opponent doesn't have a Jace. Opponent can't also just simply Plow the creature it would equip because it could then equip another creature before combat. It also helps getting past Angel tokens and Mentor tokens if the race is on. I think it would be good in the mirror match too, but Jitte's way better. For now I think the card is not something to have in the board. Miracles is a very winnable match without it and it doesn't do much against anything else.
Sparkmage has been great. Would play this over a Fireslinger anytime. The Fireslinger would be better in the opening hand, but you really can't mulligan into it and most of the time you will start the game without it in the opening hand. So the haste makes the difference. If you draw it later in the game, you don't have to wait a turn to use it if you wanted to. Or if you draw a Recruiter and don't have 6 mana it will still be active on the next turn, just like Fireslinger would be with 5 mana. Also its cmc 3 not 2, so it can be dropped out of Vial if Recruiter fetched it last turn that way.

After playing ~20 matches with that main I would register that 60 to a tournament with a confident feeling as well. Cavern feels like a reserve vial as you mentioned before and the three copies of them haven't really taxed me out of playing Plows or activating Mystics ability. But if I were to play Sudden Demises in the sideboard I would make one minor (or major) change. I'd change one Plains to a fetchland. Not to a Plateau since getting the basic before Magus can be important. Everytime one basic have been enough, but the concern is if you draw/fetch these three lands and still need more mana and then you start drawing those remaining fetches. At least I haven't lost to this yet while testing.

I'm currently playing this 15 in the board irl:

1 Containment Priest
1 Kor Firewalker (In MtGO I usually play something else than this.)
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Cunning Sparkmage
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Rest in Peace
3 Sudden Demise

Played 100th match this week online and the current record with the archetype (Imperial) is 71-29, the biggest portion of the losses has been to Storm, Dredge and Elves. Some losses against Miracles and Eldrazis as well. Unfortunately can't tell much about win percentages against a certain deck since I haven't made that good notes of the matches. But I think Storm is close to 50/50 while Miracles and Eldrazis are favored for us. Delver decks feels fine as long as they don't start the game with three copies of the flipper. Dredge is almost like a match loss.



Also, this thread has been a pleasure to read so far. It's good that there's a thread like this for the archetype.

[Stevestamopz]

Just wanted to share some thoughts on Pia and Kiran, and why I play it in the mainboard.

Game 1 against combo-decks it's a blank card, but for all the rest there's mastercard erm, P+K. It's not a total dealbreaker for me though, because the DnT matchup against most combo decks is still very good in Game 1. Coming from Goblins, having 1 dead card against combo decks as opposed to 60 is still pretty nice.

I remember playing the deck before P+K was spoiled/released and finding that the major problem with Imperial Taxes was the lack of "Serra Avenger" in the deck. It would sometimes have trouble closing out games against grindy decks that had 4 Decay and 4 DRS, because once the equipment was dealt the rest of our deck was pretty crumby. I will say however that this was during the DTT meta where Mirran Crusader was absolutely abysmal so I'd cut it for that 1WW 2/2 First Strike, Pro Red/Pro Black dude. It was as bad as everyone told me it would be./end aside

Anyway, the point is that Pia and Kiran fulfils the "Serra Avenger" gap, providing tutorable flyers and also raw power, both in it's Siege Gang ability and with the nice interaction between itself and Karakas. There are also some decks that just really cannot beat it. Against all the deck's relying on Abrupt Decay to kill creatures, P+K is exempt. For their one or two Disfigures you have Mom, Karakas and any equipment. Meanwhile, you're playing Mirran Crusaders and Magus of the Moon.

Even in games where you mulligan severely (it happens in a deck with 9 colourless lands), P+K can pull you out of tight spots by becoming a DIY Lingering Souls. I don't usually find myself Recruiting for it until the late game, but there are times when it is just the best card in the deck, and it's usually in those tight spots.

It's also just hilariously good against Miracles, and after playing that matchup twice at the GP last weekend I'm in agreeance with Iatee that the matchup is just very good for R/W.

I apologise for the rambling nature of these thoughts, they are however just a collection of thoughts I've had over the past couple of days.

Also Battlefield Forge has been excellent in it's role as the 3rd Plateau and 10th colourless source. I think I've taken about 4 damage in total off that card over 15 or so matches I've played with it, both IRL and online.

[iatee]

Hi nmks, thanks for that detailed writeup and welcome to the thread. It's great to have another person here who has really played Imperial extensively and I'm happy to have other people testing the Cavern-heavy builds. I've had a lot of success with the list, the manabase looks insane greedy from the outside, but I've played enough games with it now that I have no doubts it's not just viable, it's quite good.

Cavern and Recruiter both serve to shore up some of the inherent weaknesses in D+T. Recruiter shores up the lack of card selection, Cavern shores up the fact that you don't always have Aether Vial in your opening hand.


SoWaP has been good against Miracles. It makes opponent to use a Terminus instead of a Plow if it has equipped successfully, assuming opponent doesn't have a Jace. Opponent can't also just simply Plow the creature it would equip because it could then equip another creature before combat. It also helps getting past Angel tokens and Mentor tokens if the race is on. I think it would be good in the mirror match too, but Jitte's way better. For now I think the card is not something to have in the board. Miracles is a very winnable match without it and it doesn't do much against anything else.

Yeah, Miracles is a matchup I'm happy to face, so I generally try not to waste too much SB space on it anymore. I think if you really, really never want to lose to Miracles you can throw the extra haymakers like SoWaP, but the G1 win % vs Miracles is so high that I really don't want to have a 'just for Miracles' type slot. SoWaP is fine in the mirror but not a true trump card like Manriki.


Sparkmage has been great. Would play this over a Fireslinger anytime. The Fireslinger would be better in the opening hand, but you really can't mulligan into it and most of the time you will start the game without it in the opening hand. So the haste makes the difference. If you draw it later in the game, you don't have to wait a turn to use it if you wanted to. Or if you draw a Recruiter and don't have 6 mana it will still be active on the next turn, just like Fireslinger would be with 5 mana. Also its cmc 3 not 2, so it can be dropped out of Vial if Recruiter fetched it last turn that way.

Yeah, the Vial on 3 argument is valid and I suspect that the differences are fairly minor overall, but Fireslinger is probably a tiny bit better vs Infect, while Sparkmage is better against most other decks. I'll try a Sparkmage for a while, I've mostly just never tested it because I don't have a physical copy at hand. Also it's less stylish than Fireslinger. But I believe you and I'll find a copy.


Path was nice to take in against everything else than Miracles but didn't feel necessary in the end.

I've actually become more and more of a fan of this one-of over time. Kinda like how the Recruiter/Caverns shore up some of the inconsistencies, a 5th StP shores up the fact that you only play 4 removal spells and have no way to reliably draw into them. It's less about necessary and more about making the deck run more consistently in the fair creature matchups. I guess if you're playing O-Ring/Council's Judgment/etc. you have that additional effect anyway, though those aren't good against Infect and Burn, which are among the deck's worst matchups.

[iatee]

Just wanted to share some thoughts on Pia and Kiran, and why I play it in the mainboard.

Game 1 against combo-decks it's a blank card, but for all the rest there's mastercard erm, P+K. It's not a total dealbreaker for me though, because the DnT matchup against most combo decks is still very good in Game 1. Coming from Goblins, having 1 dead card against combo decks as opposed to 60 is still pretty nice.

I remember playing the deck before P+K was spoiled/released and finding that the major problem with Imperial Taxes was the lack of "Serra Avenger" in the deck. It would sometimes have trouble closing out games against grindy decks that had 4 Decay and 4 DRS, because once the equipment was dealt the rest of our deck was pretty crumby. I will say however that this was during the DTT meta where Mirran Crusader was absolutely abysmal so I'd cut it for that 1WW 2/2 First Strike, Pro Red/Pro Black dude. It was as bad as everyone told me it would be./end aside

Anyway, the point is that Pia and Kiran fulfils the "Serra Avenger" gap, providing tutorable flyers and also raw power, both in it's Siege Gang ability and with the nice interaction between itself and Karakas. There are also some decks that just really cannot beat it. Against all the deck's relying on Abrupt Decay to kill creatures, P+K is exempt. For their one or two Disfigures you have Mom, Karakas and any equipment. Meanwhile, you're playing Mirran Crusaders and Magus of the Moon.

Even in games where you mulligan severely (it happens in a deck with 9 colourless lands), P+K can pull you out of tight spots by becoming a DIY Lingering Souls. I don't usually find myself Recruiting for it until the late game, but there are times when it is just the best card in the deck, and it's usually in those tight spots.

It's also just hilariously good against Miracles, and after playing that matchup twice at the GP last weekend I'm in agreeance with Iatee that the matchup is just very good for R/W.

I apologise for the rambling nature of these thoughts, they are however just a collection of thoughts I've had over the past couple of days.

Also Battlefield Forge has been excellent in it's role as the 3rd Plateau and 10th colourless source. I think I've taken about 4 damage in total off that card over 15 or so matches I've played IRL and online.

Yeah, I've had success with the card out of the board and I don't think including it main is terrible or anything. It is a beast vs slow/fair decks and in some metas it's probably a great decision. It's definitely a lot of fun to play too.

[Whitefaces]

Hey guys,

I see Ratchet Bomb in a lot of SBs and am struggling to understand its inclusion. I'd assume it's good against DnT seeing as the deck is about board presence? What matchups is it for?

[zebhillard]

Hey guys,

I see Ratchet Bomb in a lot of SBs and am struggling to understand its inclusion. I'd assume it's good against DnT seeing as the deck is about board presence? What matchups is it for?

It puts in work against Young Pyromancer tokens and (for the time being) flipped Delvers. Anything that is cheap and can snowball early.

[Finn]

Dissection, generic sweeper cards like Ratchet Bomb, Powder Keg, and Engineered Explosives are good in DnT from time to time. But really, it is good against Elves (a problem matchup). Between the two, it commonly gets a spot in side boards.

[iatee]

Also good insurance vs Miracles angel tokens. In any case, with the rule change on flipped Delvers it seems pretty likely that a lot of people will drop it from their sideboards.

[Fry]

I've been having some pretty decent success with this list over the past few weeks and I plan on taking it to a GPT on Sunday

1 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
1 Mangara of Corondor
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Imperial Recruiter
3 Magus of the Moon
4 AEther Vial
1 Batterskull
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Land: 22
1 Arid Mesa
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
1 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath

Side:
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Mother of Runes
1 Veteran Armorer
1 Cunning Sparkmage
3 Sudden Demise
1 Sword of Light and Shadow

There's something special to putting the Veteran Armorer into play off Vial in response to Toxic Deluge ^_^

[Whitefaces]

It puts in work against Young Pyromancer tokens and (for the time being) flipped Delvers. Anything that is cheap and can snowball early.


Dissection, generic sweeper cards like Ratchet Bomb, Powder Keg, and Engineered Explosives are good in DnT from time to time. But really, it is good against Elves (a problem matchup). Between the two, it commonly gets a spot in side boards.

Thanks for the answers. This is what a friend pointed out, but it seemed a bit narrow to me as tokens usually struggle against Batterskull. Elves seems like it's worth it though, what a nightmare matchup!

[iatee]

I've been having some pretty decent success with this list over the past few weeks and I plan on taking it to a GPT on Sunday

1 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
1 Mangara of Corondor
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Imperial Recruiter
3 Magus of the Moon
4 AEther Vial
1 Batterskull
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Land: 22
1 Arid Mesa
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
1 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath

Side:
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Mother of Runes
1 Veteran Armorer
1 Cunning Sparkmage
3 Sudden Demise
1 Sword of Light and Shadow

There's something special to putting the Veteran Armorer into play off Vial in response to Toxic Deluge ^_^

I like the radical choices here - 3 Moms, 3 SfM. I think Imperial has a lot of room to break w/ the orthodoxy. I think 3 Moms is most likely wrong, but I am not 100% sure that going down on SfM is incorrect when you have an extra 3 copies in Recruiter. I would suggest trying to squeeze in another copy of Cavern over a Plains. 4 is way more than you need. Looks like nmks even got it done the other day with his 1 plains build: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/386756#paper

I think being *that* greedy will eventually get you punished either by drawing a double white card after Magus is out (nmks only has 4 in the 75 though) or having a land-light hand and getting Wasteland'd out by Lands/DnT/etc.

Are either of you guys reliably casting Sudden Demise? I stopped playing it because it just didn't come in for enough non-Elves matchups. Fry's build has 6 red sources, nmks's 8. The chances of drawing/mulling to Sudden Demise + red source twice in a row seem low enough that it's not worth it to use sideboard spots to try make one terrible match-up 50-50. Elves is probably in a pretty bad place right now due to Eldrazi anyway.

I feel the same way about Burn - at this point it's the only deck I think mono-white has a better matchup against (+ maybe Fish, which is still a positive matchup) but SB cards that destroy Burn are so narrow that I still don't like to include anything. Also Burn players are generally terrible, so why bother.

[nmks]

Looks like nmks even got it done the other day with his 1 plains build: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/386756#paper

I think being *that* greedy will eventually get you punished either by drawing a double white card after Magus is out (nmks only has 4 in the 75 though) or having a land-light hand and getting Wasteland'd out by Lands/DnT/etc.

Are either of you guys reliably casting Sudden Demise? I stopped playing it because it just didn't come in for enough non-Elves matchups. Fry's build has 6 red sources, nmks's 8. The chances of drawing/mulling to Sudden Demise + red source twice in a row seem low enough that it's not worth it to use sideboard spots to try make one terrible match-up 50-50. Elves is probably in a pretty bad place right now due to Eldrazi anyway.

I feel the same way about Burn - at this point it's the only deck I think mono-white has a better matchup against (+ maybe Fish, which is still a positive matchup) but SB cards that destroy Burn are so narrow that I still don't like to include anything. Also Burn players are generally terrible, so why bother.

Almost always I have been able to cast it when I wanted to, but I'm starting to think the same way that the Demises are still not enough versus the Elves. So I'm considering dropping them off and playing more Plains's in the main again and something 'better' in the board.

So far I have been satisfied with only one basic, but way more often the amount of fetchable lands has been the problem. I said earlier that 1 Plains and 2 Plateau split would be the split I'd play with Demises in the board, but it has started to feel quite greedy just as you said. Not only because of opposing Wastelands but because of the dead fetches you'll draw later in the game.

I do agree so much with that last sentence. I actually think that Burn is a good deck, but usually the good players don't decide to pilot it. There's almost unlimited number of times I've heard/watched someone playing Burn and losing the match only because the pilot misplayed. Of course there are good players playing the deck as well, but not so often as you said.

[iatee]

Across formats, mono-red decks are generally played by a. new players b. budget players...and c. pure spikes. In various Standards and in Modern pre-Eldrazi you might play against a very good player playing mono-red / Burn, because they felt it was the deck that gave them the best chance at winning a given tournament. Legacy burn is t1.5ish - solid, but not a deck that ever gives you the best chance at winning a tournament, so the pure spikes in legacy are never gonna suit it up.

Other good players who are playing legacy cause they enjoy playing legacy are never gonna play it, because it's not actually fun to play. So that leaves the new players and budget players.

[Finn]

I would never ever trim a mother of runes. That card wins games. Lots of them. It is one of those cards that amplifies the deck and your skill with it.

[Fry]

I like the radical choices here - 3 Moms, 3 SfM. I think Imperial has a lot of room to break w/ the orthodoxy. I think 3 Moms is most likely wrong, but I am not 100% sure that going down on SfM is incorrect when you have an extra 3 copies in Recruiter. I would suggest trying to squeeze in another copy of Cavern over a Plains. 4 is way more than you need. Looks like nmks even got it done the other day with his 1 plains build: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/386756#paper

I think being *that* greedy will eventually get you punished either by drawing a double white card after Magus is out (nmks only has 4 in the 75 though) or having a land-light hand and getting Wasteland'd out by Lands/DnT/etc.

Are either of you guys reliably casting Sudden Demise? I stopped playing it because it just didn't come in for enough non-Elves matchups. Fry's build has 6 red sources, nmks's 8. The chances of drawing/mulling to Sudden Demise + red source twice in a row seem low enough that it's not worth it to use sideboard spots to try make one terrible match-up 50-50. Elves is probably in a pretty bad place right now due to Eldrazi anyway.

I feel the same way about Burn - at this point it's the only deck I think mono-white has a better matchup against (+ maybe Fish, which is still a positive matchup) but SB cards that destroy Burn are so narrow that I still don't like to include anything. Also Burn players are generally terrible, so why bother.

I like the idea of having the 4 Plains, sometimes it's nice to be able to cast Crusader, Wisp, or Mangara post Magus, and it can be annoying sometimes, normally not an issue. A lot of decks now don't have Mom helping out much against combo decks and Eldrazi it feels like a wasted card, but they are still good against a lot of things, which is why I was torn about the 3 main, but definitely wanted all 4 in the 75. I'm perfectly happy with my 3 SFM as sometimes I do Recruiter for one to help get my specific equipment, but I normally don't need to, and it always sort of makes me sad when I'm playing D&T and a SFM gets blown out before it gets to do its thing with cheating into play, and I like it better as 3 in Imperial Taxes as I don't always want it in my opener, but it's still nice to draw most games without needing to search it out.

I haven't had any issues with casting the Sudden Demise, I like Magus against Elves, shuts them down a lot, obviously not completely, but it slows them down. I also like the card a lot against Mentor Miracles, They normally don't play more than 1 or 2 spells on my turn anyway, so playing it for more mana normally is not a problem as it gets around Counterbalance a lot more often.

Pretty much the when the Sudden Demise comes into play I am still playing the Magus in the deck, so having the 1 plateau hasn't ever been a problem, at least not yet.

@Finn, I was torn very much about the Mom split, and it does do a lot of work against a lot of matches, but it's sometimes also just a 1/1 beater for 1, and I'd rather have another real beater in my list (for me it's more like a 22nd land, I play 21 in my D&T and very rarely have issues there).

[iatee]

In some local metas, I wouldn't be surprised if playing fewer Moms were totally fine. Like if you expect to see Pure combo/Elves/Eldrazi for 50% of g1s, it isn't that crazy to want play fewer Eager Cadets.

In a blind meta I think it's probably not a good idea. But with the recent growth of Eldrazi it's certainly less-wrong.

[itsmrjack]

Hi folks.

First time poster on here but I've been really enjoying and learning a lot from the healthy discussions.

I've recently returned to MTG after an 8 year hiatus and fell straight into death and taxes due to my penchant for annoying white decks with little people :cool:

I've been playing a WW version with 3 wingmares and 3 caverns - so particularly liked seeing this as a feature of your Wr build nmks and wholeheartedly agree on the caverns being vial backup++ (and congrats on the 1st place on mtgo).

Been having some fun down my LGS, but nothing serious at the moment. However there are s couple elves players and I've been wracking my brains for solutions.

I tried the Wb version for orzhov pontiffs and zealous persecutions but found it pretty horrible in initial testing on cockatrice so took it no further.

So, with the possibility for red cards I got thinking and would like to make a suggestion... Laugh if you will, maybe it's a non-starter
It's most certainly slow. But how is Ali from Cairo? Without Mom to back it up most elves builds seem to have maximum 3 abrupt decays to beat it. Perhaps then sword of light and shadow as an additional backup, albeit another slow piece. With Mom it seems like a lock for them, and our flyers FtW?! I'm probably missing something.

Anyway, just a thought. It's only 1 card in the SB. Maybe steal a few elves matches out of sheer surprise value alone :eyebrow:

Keep up the good work.

Thanks.

[itsmrjack]

With Mom it seems like a lock for them, and our flyers FtW?!

...though of course a DRS could get around it though.

[iatee]

I would *love* to have an excuse to play that card, but it's worse than Magus of the Moat at what it would be doing vs Elves.

With Ali, Elves can attack you to 1 then DRS drain you once to kill you. With Moat, they can't attack at all, and can only DRS drain, so unless they're playing something like Shaman of the Pack it's a pretty solid fortress. It's also good vs Merfolk, though they have a few more ways to interact with it.

The problem is it's 4 mana, and Elves goes off on t3, so it's not 'enough' of a solution on its own, and (like Sudden Demise, imo) doesn't have enough other matchups where it's good to justify its spot in a board.

[iatee]

Also - PS, for both Ali and Moat, Abrupt Decay doesn't even hit them, so you don't need a Mom. They're (but especially Moat) just a lock in themselves.

[Fry]

In some local metas, I wouldn't be surprised if playing fewer Moms were totally fine. Like if you expect to see Pure combo/Elves/Eldrazi for 50% of g1s, it isn't that crazy to want play fewer Eager Cadets.

In a blind meta I think it's probably not a good idea. But with the recent growth of Eldrazi it's certainly less-wrong.

I'm not talking about taking this list only to a local meta tournament, but blind ones as well. I don't think that playing 3 main Mother of Runes is a bad thing, it is most definitely unconventional, but without doing unconventional things, you never learn if there's a better option out there. How do you think that innovations sometimes become mainstays?

I believe that 3 Mother of Runes in the main with the 4th in the board is not a bad call going into a blind meta. Eldrazi is on the rise (Pun intended), MUD, ANT, T.E.S., Omni-Show, and more unusual decks like High Tide are bad decks for Mom. Mom does nothing against those decks (or pretty close to it, unless you're just trying to win a pure race).

I know that Mom is her best in the earliest of games, but with the decks that seem to be gaining in popularity, Mom isn't the best of cards. Also With Magus in play, it's harder for certain spells (ie: Abrupt Decay) to make us sad. I don't think I would ever play less than 3 main and 1 side. I think it's a reasonable split, and in the match ups where it may hurt, things are skewed a bit once Magus gets online anyway. In D&T I would never play anything other than the full set main board, but this is IT we're talking here in regards to my deck, very similar, but different.

[iatee]

Mom also combines *with* Magus for a hard lock against bolt decks, however.

Again, I think it's something worth testing, even if I (without having tested either myself) feel like it's more likely that 3 SfM main could be long-term viable than 3 Mom main. I also have been advocating for Cavern of Souls heavy builds for a long time now and any human in the deck becomes marginally better while every non-human gets marginally worse.

But, abstractly - one of the weaknesses of D+T is how few one drops there are. Vial on 1 is often 'wasted'. Having 8 one drops with Mom/Vial means your chances of having a turn one play of some sort is okay - something like 65% before mulligans, so still lower than what you'd want it to be. By going down on 1 drops your chances of having a 'wasted' turn 1 becomes even higher. Most of the rest of the decks in legacy are filled with mana-efficient spells and have game relevant early turns. So even if Mom herself is bad vs an increasing number of decks (that might not actually be the case, since I think Eldrazi is gonna freeze out all but the most dedicated Storm players), that matters less than it would for a given 3 drop.

[Bahra]

Mom also combines *with* Magus for a hard lock against bolt decks, however.

Again, I think it's something worth testing, even if I (without having tested either myself) feel like it's more likely that 3 SfM main could be long-term viable than 3 Mom main. I also have been advocating for Cavern of Souls heavy builds for a long time now and any human in the deck becomes marginally better while every non-human gets marginally worse.

But, abstractly - one of the weaknesses of D+T is how few one drops there are. Vial on 1 is often 'wasted'. Having 8 one drops with Mom/Vial means your chances of having a turn one play of some sort is okay - something like 65% before mulligans, so still lower than what you'd want it to be. By going down on 1 drops your chances of having a 'wasted' turn 1 becomes even higher. Most of the rest of the decks in legacy are filled with mana-efficient spells and have game relevant early turns. So even if Mom herself is bad vs an increasing number of decks (that might not actually be the case, since I think Eldrazi is gonna freeze out all but the most dedicated Storm players), that matters less than it would for a given 3 drop.

I very much agree here with what iatee has to say about the 1 drop slots. That was what I was thinking when someone suggested that cutting on Mother of Runes could be ok.

A lot of the times when you look at what makes a good hand for D&T, it is if there's a turn 1 play and how well it sets up the next turn. Is there a vial to play into port? Is there Mother of Runes into Stoneforge Mystic? Is there a Swords to Plowshares for their turn 1 play and then a follow up Thalia? etc.

I rarely keep hands without 1 drops and therefor I would never cut them, Swords to Plowshares is by far the weakest 1 drop, it barely counts as a 1 drop really, and it's the only one I would ever consider trimming down the numbers on (and it's besides the point, but I board out 4x Swords to Plowshares in ~50% of match ups by now).

[itsmrjack]

iatee, thanks for indulging in ol' Ali...

I would *love* to have an excuse to play that card
...man, tell me about it! That mysterious scowl... "look into the emerald, not around the emerald, look intooo the emerald..." hehe


but it's worse than Magus of the Moat at what it would be doing vs Elves.
Agreed. I completely forgot about the existence of this card (I think it came out around the time I quit last).


With Ali, Elves can attack you to 1 then DRS drain you once to kill you.
Yeah I put a PS on this, figuring it immediately after my initial post! Darn DRS.


The problem is it's 4 mana, and Elves goes off on t3, so it's not 'enough' of a solution on its own, and (like Sudden Demise, imo) doesn't have enough other matchups where it's good to justify its spot in a board.
Aye, it is slooow. Anyhow, a singleton Magus of the Moat + 2/3 Sudden Demise doesn't seem too shabby for an Elves-heavy meta (as uncommon as it sounds, it's the case at my LGS). This gets me thinking about curves vs. Elves...

Proposition:

Ok, so beginning with the premise that, at least when D&T is on the play after a G1 thumping, a T2 Sudden Demise or Canonist or Containment Priest is enough to keep us alive till T4 (obviously not always the case but let's just go with it). Ahemm...

So then what is the better (and by better I mean laying ground to win rather than just staying afloat) following sequence?

either:
(A) T3 Recruiter for Magus of the Moat, T4 Magus of the Moat, T5 play a flyer...
or
(B) T3 SfM get Jitte, T4 play Jitte equip attack (+ mana up for StP), T5 some further disruption or beats...

Clearly lots of ifs buts and maybes involved in either sequence. My point though is simply that the Elves plan seems to fairly often be about T2 disruption followed by getting Jitte online and that getting Jitte online is almost always a 2-turn play (though I've seen others reasonably argue that Jitte is often too slow anyway). Both sequences fall to Thoughseize obvs–but let's go with it for now...

The presence or otherwise of StP, filling in the curve at T1 or T3 seems non-trivial, and sequence (A) leaves only T1 space for StP, meaning that T3 we're wide open compared with seq. (B). But otherwise I feel that Recruiter into Magus of the Moat has a lot going for it as a plan over SfM into active Jitte.

Thoughts?

I'm accutely aware I may be flogging a dead horse here but seems worthy to at least map it out a bit. Perhaps it's been done already though?!

On the draw, however, I think that the spare mana for a possible StP(/Path) that a T3 SfM allows us could be crucial.

Another point of interest here is that if sequence (A) is opted for then does Containment Priest get marginally better than Canonist due to its ability to totally shut off both N.O. and Zenith, therefore leaving their only option to kill us till Mr Moat hits being an early hard-cast Behemoth or Glimpse sequence into Behemoth? Admittedly I haven't seen enough Glimpse sequences to know how reliably and quickly they can go off into lethal Behemoth... I've usually been killed by N.O. or T5/T6 hard-cast Behemoth the times I've played Elves. Hmmm.. Canonist is probably still the favourite here.


PS, for both Ali and Moat, Abrupt Decay doesn't even hit them, so you don't need a Mom.
Ah yes, thanks for this. You know when a drawback seems to so rarely come up that you forget it's there entirely!

cheers

[iatee]

If either sequence is t3 setup (Sfm, Recruiter) t4 land bomb (Jitte, Moat), then Recruiter -> Moat is almost always much stronger. An online Jitte can be beat - Wirewood a blocker, Abrupt Decay, Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Rec Sage. They don't always have an answer, but their 75 isn't short on them. The Moat sequence loses to Thoughtseize, loses to them winning exactly next turn, but beats basically everything else.



Another point of interest here is that if sequence (A) is opted for then does Containment Priest get marginally better than Canonist due to its ability to totally shut off both N.O. and Zenith, therefore leaving their only option to kill us till Mr Moat hits being an early hard-cast Behemoth or Glimpse sequence into Behemoth? Admittedly I haven't seen enough Glimpse sequences to know how reliably and quickly they can go off into lethal Behemoth... I've usually been killed by N.O. or T5/T6 hard-cast Behemoth the times I've played Elves. Hmmm.. Canonist is probably still the favourite here.


Kinda just depends on the board and their hand, in that particular spot I would probably prefer to have Ethersworn, unless they already had enough of a board that Natural Order -> Behemoth was a kill.

[Barook]

Expensive, yes, but given the spread of our abilities, it might still be an interesting, game-ending bomb:

http://media.wizards.com/2016/aksdjciawolkcc0_soi/en_0KtJV0DIju.png

Thalia: First Strike
Serra Avenger: Vigilance, Flying
Flickerwisp: Flying
Mirran Crusader: Double Strike
Batterskull: Lifelink, Vigilance

Avenger + Thalia gives you flying first strikers that can swing AND defend. Not to mention what happens when you throw a Crusader in the mix instead. Making your whole team flying is huge. Odric can also be protected by Karakas.

[Curby]

Hey folks, catching back up after a few months away. So if we want to stop stuff like Wail and the +3/-3 whatever-the-hell, and we like fliers, is Restoration Angel (i.e. the big fliers build) once again more worthy of consideration? It also works well with Moat effects when we have 10ish 3-power fliers anyway, and tends to run Dust Bowls which helps address all the Sol lands in Eldrazi Stompy.

[iatee]

When they're playing 4/4s on t2 and 5/5s on t3, I don't think a 3/4 on t4 is much of a trump card.

[Curby]

I really meant the build rather than the card. I guess the problem is staying alive long enough for the synergies to work in our favor. Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone's tested it.

[itsmrjack]

If either sequence is t3 setup (Sfm, Recruiter) t4 land bomb (Jitte, Moat), then Recruiter -> Moat is almost always much stronger. An online Jitte can be beat - Wirewood a blocker, Abrupt Decay, Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Rec Sage. They don't always have an answer, but their 75 isn't short on them. The Moat sequence loses to Thoughtseize, loses to them winning exactly next turn, but beats basically everything else.

So exactly, the jitte plan is always going to be vulnerable against Elves - never really reliable but it's often considered the best of a small bunch of options. And similarly so is batterskull. Those two cards seem about the only options outside of Cataclysm for D&T to turn hanging on into some kind of winnable position. So I guess, in Magus of the Most, I see a lot of milage in devoting a single SB slot to a tutorable card which is better than pretty much any one of the existing primary ways to get ahead against Elves. And which not only gets ahead but can effectively win the game there and then.

The other thing is that an effective D&T strategy vs Elves with Recruiter in starting hand and Magus of the Moat in the library might be to simply play to stall their comboing off rather than to try to get any kind of board muscle going. Playing as such could also involve T1 vial to play Recruiter AEOT for Magus T5 in order to avoid Thoughtseize, with hate pieces played in between simply to stall them. From the SB a Pithing Needle or two for Nettle Sentinels and Quirions and a Sunlance or Warping wail would help here alongside Canonist and Priest. (Please remember here I'm talking from the perspective of an Elves heavy meta, though I imagine that except Magus these cards have their uses in other matchups)

...in fact I this kinda reminds me where I was going with the Priest vs Canonist thing, i.e. which play buys most time, rather than which gets most position. You're right, obviously it depends on the state of the board. But actually with the above SB strategy I could see a Priest stalling enough, with say a well placed Pithing Needle/Revoker or two to prevent them Glimpsing and/or Port/Wasteland to prevent them getting enough mana to hard cast Behemoth, until Magus of the Most comes down. Of course I'd still be bringing both Canonist and Priest in.

[iatee]

I really meant the build rather than the card. I guess the problem is staying alive long enough for the synergies to work in our favor. Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone's tested it.

Flyers are good vs Eldrazi but not a sure thing. A handful of Serra Avengers could totally wreck Eldrazi or totally get wrecked by Eldrazi, depending on whether you have a Vial, whether the Vial can resolve, whether they have a fast hand etc. Flickerwisp is pretty good regardless, cause it can still eat a Chalice or Endless One even if you don't have a Vial.

[iatee]

So exactly, the jitte plan is always going to be vulnerable against Elves - never really reliable but it's often considered the best of a small bunch of options. And similarly so is batterskull. Those two cards seem about the only options outside of Cataclysm for D&T to turn hanging on into some kind of winnable position. So I guess, in Magus of the Most, I see a lot of milage in devoting a single SB slot to a tutorable card which is better than pretty much any one of the existing primary ways to get ahead against Elves. And which not only gets ahead but can effectively win the game there and then.

The other thing is that an effective D&T strategy vs Elves with Recruiter in starting hand and Magus of the Moat in the library might be to simply play to stall their comboing off rather than to try to get any kind of board muscle going. Playing as such could also involve T1 vial to play Recruiter AEOT for Magus T5 in order to avoid Thoughtseize, with hate pieces played in between simply to stall them. From the SB a Pithing Needle or two for Nettle Sentinels and Quirions and a Sunlance or Warping wail would help here alongside Canonist and Priest. (Please remember here I'm talking from the perspective of an Elves heavy meta, though I imagine that except Magus these cards have their uses in other matchups)

...in fact I this kinda reminds me where I was going with the Priest vs Canonist thing, i.e. which play buys most time, rather than which gets most position. You're right, obviously it depends on the state of the board. But actually with the above SB strategy I could see a Priest stalling enough, with say a well placed Pithing Needle/Revoker or two to prevent them Glimpsing and/or Port/Wasteland to prevent them getting enough mana to hard cast Behemoth, until Magus of the Most comes down. Of course I'd still be bringing both Canonist and Priest in.

Moat is good vs. Elves (and Merfolk) but the ultimate question is: how much does having a copy in your SB increase your expected win % vs Elves? The problem is game 1 - if your chance at winning g1 vs Elves is something like 25%, then you almost always have to win g2 *and* g3. A single card that won't come into play until they've had 5 turns (when they're on the play) is not gonna reliably win you both g2 and g3.

I think for a RW list that already has a lot of other good Elves SB cards (Ethersworns, a Containment Priest etc., Warping Wail), tossing a Moat into your SB might increase your overall expected match win % by like 10 percent. Because g1 is so rough, it's almost impossible to tune the SB to make the match strongly favored overall. And that means ultimately, you're using a single SB spot to target one deck, and even after doing so, you still aren't making yourself strongly favored.

So it's ultimately just not very economical for a large tournament. Cards like Containment Priest / Warping Wail - which don't *just win* the same way that Moat does - still end up coming in for a decent number of non-Elves matches.

That said, for local metas, if you're losing to Elves a lot, Magus of the Moat is a fine thing to put in your SB, even for mono-white lists, but especially RW lists that get to effectively play 4 when they play 1. I use it once in a while to troll my friends who play Merfolk.

[James718]

Is Moat (the enchantment) worth a consideration in the SB against Eldrazi?

[iatee]

I think if you run an E Tutor package + lots of flyers and want to beat Eldrazi, it's definitely a solid option. Unfortunately can be Rec Sage'd, so not nearly as good as Magus vs Elves.

[Luca Grease]

Hi folks, just dropping in to let you know I tore through my local Legacy bi-weekly last Friday with a mono-white list, 4-0 ing the swiss en route to a top 4 victory. I'm not gonna go into as much detail regarding the matches as other times since most of them were rather standard DnT fare without much fanfare, but I'd like to spend a few words on the list. This is what I ran:

4 Mom
4 Thalia
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Revoker
4 Flickerwisp
4 Mirran Crusader
2 Mangara of Corondor

4 Plow
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
1 SoFI

3 Karakas
4 Port
4 Wasteland
2 Cavern of Souls
10 Plains

SB:
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
2 Leonin Relic Warder
2 Wilf-Leaf Liege
2 Rest in Peace
2 Council's Judgement
2 Cataclysm

Preparing for the event, I knew I wanted to be solid against Eldrazi and Miracles, so I had already upped my Mangara count back to 2, and, after seeing iatee's SCG R/W list featuring 3 cavern of souls, I started considering the idea of adding another cavern, since it's, well, awesome in a format filled with counterbalances, dazes, fows, even counterspells, and those cards are all pretty good against us as long as they can keep us off vial. Honestly, when you think how much viability and power other Aether Vial decks like Merfolk and Goblin get from running a playset of them, it seems totally worth it to try and maximise your humans count to make the second copy work. Besides, in the age of Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm and Dread of Night, nobody really plays Engineered Plague anymore. A quick review of our creature arsenal soon revealed that the only proven, reliably good enough human I could pack more copies of was Mirran Crusader (I was until recently playing 2). Conveniently, it's a creature that fills more or less the same role as the creature that was most likely to be negatively affected by cutting a white source: the 2-of Serra Avenger. This would make me a bit softer to Delver of Secrets, but since the most played Delver deck around here is BUG, the Crusader playset (coupled with the Lieges in the SB) should more than make up for that. I really liked the idea of just crushing BUG, Junk, Aggro Loam, Maverick, and Liliana decks in general, since those match-ups have often proven a bit too close for my liking in the past. Another advantage of maxing out on Crusaders is that against Eldrazi a couple of them, perhaps in conjunction with a Thalia in g1, can create an insurmountable first striking wall that will just cockblock them permanently. I knew I would probably lose some percentage points against Grixis and ultra fast UR Delver decks by cutting Avenger, but I guessed the second Cavern would have at least partially made up for that by making sure my Thalias and Flickerwisp resolved (note that Flickerwisp is the only non-human card requiring 2 white in my maindeck, so drawing a second cavern becomes a non issue since you can just name elemental with it, or, if you only have one Cavern and multiple wisps, you can name elemental first and then use the last one to reset it to humans).

Anyway, here's how it went:

ROUND 1: Bant Stoneblade (with tiny black splash for Shamans and SB decay)
This MU is probably not the easiest since they're running mana dorks, equipment, TNN, and KoTR (not much of an issue with my list), but the games turned out pretty easy. He mulled to 5 in G1 and I quickly wasted him out of it after revoking his Hierarch. He got so little going I actually wasn't sure what I was up against, but I must have seen some white mana because I knew it probably wasn't just Infect. He had a somewhat lackluster start in G2 as well, but I got scared for a moment when he landed a Karakas + Vendillion Clique and started beating me with it, since my hand was like double Thalia double Mangara and Plow, and I couldn't get anything going. Eventually I found a timely wasteland and took control of the game from there via Mangara lock.

2-0
Total: 1-0

ROUND 2: U/R Delver/Prowess
Yea, the Delver deck I least wanted to play against (except maybe Grixis). I knew what I was up against and still kept a bad 7 card hand in G1 despite him mulling to 6 (double revoker, jitte, plow, and lands, I figured the plow would buy me some time and the jitte would safely get me there as long as a could draw a couple of creatures and not get it forced). I died a swift and merciless death without ever connecting with the jitte. I handily won G2 by managing to slow down the game to the point where I could cheat in a Batterskull with 3 mana up for an eventual Smash to Smithereens (turns out he didn't have it and I could have won 3 turns earlier). G3 was a bit of a sweat, with an early Thalia + Karakas slowing him down and double Flickerwisp trading with his early threats (cavern set on elemental did HUGE work here, at least potentially). Once I stabilized the board, I fired off my wasteland on his only blue source, which prompted him to Brainstorm lock himself in response, and started chipping at his life total (already softened by multiple Gitaxian Probes). I drew both of my Council's Judgements with only 3 mana available (and Thalia on the field), but the Thalia squeeze, coupled with a late mom to push the last 2 points of damage through when he was tapped out, proved to be enough to race him. Unorthodox, but I'll take it.

2-1
Total: 2-0

ROUND 3: U/W/r Standstill
So this guy is bored of playing Miracles (or perhaps he rightly thinks it's not that good against Eldrazi) so he's opted for an awesome old school Landstill list with some real spice (singleton Future Sight above all).
G1 starts off rather well as I manage to land my second Aether Vial after getting the first one forced and slowly tick it up to set up my Mangara lock while we trade resources, and I am feeling pretty confident when he untaps for his fifth turn with only 2 cards in hand since I have an active vial and a relatively stacked hand despite no mana denial, but he just slams Future Sight and 2 turns later he has like 7 cards in hand and is struggling not to discard to hand size. I never get a chance to untap with Mangara and just get buried by card advantage in a way Shardless Bug can only dream of: I get a brief glimmer of hope when I manage to stick a SoFI on Thalia and he seems to be out of plows, but I soon discover that Engineered Explosives + Academy Ruins + Future Sight and a lot of mana is a dirty, dirty mix...
I am a bit rattled by the traumatic and unexpected beating I just took, but my fears prove unfounded as infallible turn 1 vials effortlessly carry me to decisive victories in both post board games (G3 in particular was one of those non-games that we all hate suffering but love inflicting in a tournament, as a land light draw on his part conspires with an early Thalia + Wasteland on mine to seal the game before it even really begins).

2-1
Total: 3-0


ROUND 4: Goblin Stompy
For those of you not familiar with this deck, it is basically ALL the hate (Chalice, Trinisphere, Thorn, Blood Moon, Magus) and funny goblins to finish your opponent off once you're playing solitaire. It also matches up horrendously against DnT, since it can't really beat basic lands, or Stoneforge Mystic, or Mother of Runes, or creatures with first strike, or fliers, or Revokers, or a Mangara lock, or anything we run, really. Despite this, I still manage to lose G1 by keeping a shitpile of a hand with no basics and no vial and getting ran over by a motley crew of Goblin Rabblemasters, Murderous Redcaps, and other hilarious critters. Serves me right. Once again, however, things go very smoothly in the post board games and I just shit all over it with every tool I have: my opponent made the job even easier by making comical sb decisions (suffice to say a Defense Grid was involved). Ah well, I guess you don't need to be a Legacy savant to win games when your deck is just jamming game-ending lock pieces turn after turn.

2-1
Total: 4-0

So I'm first seed, and I'll get to be on the play in my top4 matches


SEMIFINALS: Bant Stoneblade (again)
This time it's much more of a contest: I quickly win G1 thanks to a fast vial start into multiple Mirran Crusaders coupled with a Mangara lock which he has to spend a lot of resources on to break (on his last turn, he has the chance to connect with Jitte but that's still not enough to save him), but drop G2 to an equipped TNN. G3 starts off rather grimly, as I keep a 6 card hand with no turn 1 play (with a mom on top of the deck) and he accelerates with T1 Hierarch and grabs jitte with a turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic, all while plowing my first two plays (mom, Revoker on Jitte). He connects with jitte on turn 3 and I play my Leonin Relic Warder (he's savy enough not to jitte it in response to the trigger and gain life instead), and pray he doesn't have a third removal spell, as that would probably end the game right there and then. He doesn't, but he lands a Knight of the Reliquary and a Batterskull and starts pressuring my life total before I can stabilize with two active moms and my own Batterskull (I search that since I already have Jitte in hand). I make a slight misplay by trying to get my first jitte'd up batterskull hit in without first giving it pro black when he has his own batterskull and plenty of mana available, so he just blocks and bounces it before dmg, then cheats it in eot again. He then tries to decay my Jitte but I save it with a vialed in Flickerwisp, which suits up on the next turn and finally connects. I don't spend the counters immediately since his small dorks are rather irrelevant atm, but as soon as he draws, I realize he could topdeck his Krosan Grip (which I have seen in a previous game), and decide that I'll use them in response to his first action. Of course his topdeck was Krosan Grip, and bestial curses soon fill the air. In spite of this, the double mom lock just holds up beautifully (since he doesn't seem to run any -1-1 effects), and two lands in a row allow me to suit up Flickerwisp with the Batterskull, which quickly seals the deal (at that point, not even a TNN would have saved him). That Leonin Relic Warder made his best Oblivion Ring impression as he just sat there the whole game, too afraid to ever attack, block, or pick up anything, but he was still MVP.

2-1
TOTAL: 5-0

FINALS: U/W/r Landstill (again)
A pretty nice set of games to seal it off. It's worth noting that, despite a mulligan to 6 and the ubiquitous Batterskull (with no SFM), my openers always contained Aether Vial (and it always stuck, if not the first copy then the second), and the top of the deck just generally treated me pretty well. I took down a rather orthodox G1 thanks to vial, pressure, and disruption. The most notable aspect of this game was him managing to land a Humility at around 7-ish life but still dying to multiple vanilla 1/1s since he was so spent.
G2 started off well enough too, as I had the second Judgement to take out his early Humility after he forced the first, and a SoFI equipped creature to force a chump block from his Containment Priest to turn my vial back on. I went for the knock-out blow by trying to Cataclysm before he could untap with 5 lands and 2 cards in hand, but he had just drawn the Counterspell for it, and once again I got to be on the receiving end of the power of Future Sight in a control deck with Sensei's Divining Top. 2 Planeswalkers, an army of tokens, and an active FoW + Supreme Verdict later, I conceded.
In the decider, however, my early Vial + the usual barrage of disruption and mana denial once again proved to be too much to handle, even though he certainly put up a fight this time. With him at 3 from my last attack, I wasted one of his volcanic islands and tapped the other on his upkeep, knowing that, with a Thalia in play, Firespout was his only out. Fetching his third Volcanic Island, he was pretty confident he was going to turn the corner, but the last card in my hand was indeed a Flickerwisp, which was promptly vialed in to save the Thalia and secure the victory.

2-1
TOTAL: 6-0



So that's it, nothing out of the ordinary but a pretty good run nontheless. The second Cavern really convinced me of its worth, and the whole list performed well overall, Mirrans included, which is pretty impressive considering that I didn't run into any of the decks I was truly gunning for with them. Thanks for reading and hopefully commenting! :)

[iatee]

Congrats - that's a cool list and it sounds like you played well. I'm obviously a fan of anyone brewing with Cavern, and I do think there are lots of directions to take it. I have had good experiences recently with both Mangara and Mirran Crusaders.

One thing I'll suggest - your main is pretty easily playable with 2 Caverns, but the SB might be pushing it with 8 WW/WWW cards. Since you're already shoring up the Miracles matchup with the main, you could easily replace 1 or both Cataclysms, maybe with a Pithing Needle or something else that's still good against Miracles.

[Luca Grease]

Congrats - that's a cool list and it sounds like you played well. I'm obviously a fan of anyone brewing with Cavern, and I do think there are lots of directions to take it. I have had good experiences recently with both Mangara and Mirran Crusaders.

One thing I'll suggest - your main is pretty easily playable with 2 Caverns, but the SB might be pushing it with 8 WW/WWW cards. Since you're already shoring up the Miracles matchup with the main, you could easily replace 1 or both Cataclysms, maybe with a Pithing Needle or something else that's still good against Miracles.

Hi man, first of all, I gotta give you props since you're the one who gave me the idea to go up in caverns, so shout out to ya! As for Cataclysm, I have sometimes thought about whether it is necessary (it is good against other decks other than Miracles, but the times I face those are few and far between), but the mana requirement has frankly not been a concern: even with 1 less white source, you'll generally have plenty of time to find the right lands, since it's a late game card and the durdly control decks you want it against are not gonna mess with your mana anyway... I am more worried about getting screwed out of casting WLL (I still hope Santa will let me cheat it in) or Relic-Warder, but I guess you can name Cleric (also casts mom, Canonist and CP) or Knight (also casts Mirran) with cavern in a pinch. Judgement is probably the clunkiest card in my board since I sometimes want to cast it asap and against some decks running wasteland too, but man, that card is just so solid as a catch all answer, and the two local U/W players are currently running humility in their lists (see report), I'd feel naked without it. Perhaps I could swap it for a disenchant or two, but that would make it noticeably worse against Eldrazi, which is a matchup for which I am already lacking efficient sideboard cards, I feel. Come to think of it, Cataclysm probably is the least necessary card in my board, since there's not too much stuff I wanna side out against Miracles anyway: I'll give it some thought and see if I can come up with something that fills more glaring holes.

As for the mainboard, I think I will shave off a Crusader for a singleton Fiend Hunter: the idea here is that by cutting Avenger I have become noticeably softer to Delver of Secrets, and fiend hunter can serve as a fifth removal spell (a la GP Strasbourg) which is also very good against Eldrazi while retaining value against all the decks Crusader excels against, and adding yet another maindeck card that shits on SnT/Reanimator. The way I see it, it is only really a loss against Miracles, but even there it could snag a mentor or be vialed in to save a more precious creature from terminus, so that's not too bad.

[Marungo]

@Luca Grease
Nice job with the 6-0! Pretty unique set of decks that you ended up playing too! I totally agree with caverns as well. Been on 2 caverns for the past few months and loving them. Also agree with 3-4 crusaders. Card is really well positioned right now with a decline in combo decks lately. Well done sir.

@anyone else
What do we board out vs. shardless? I have a pretty stock main deck with 4 of all the usual guys and then 3 avengers and 3 crusaders for my flex spots but what do we take out? I usually lean towards the flickerwisps and the sword of fire and ice, but wanted to know what the consensus was

[iatee]

As for the mainboard, I think I will shave off a Crusader for a singleton Fiend Hunter: the idea here is that by cutting Avenger I have become noticeably softer to Delver of Secrets, and fiend hunter can serve as a fifth removal spell (a la GP Strasbourg) which is also very good against Eldrazi while retaining value against all the decks Crusader excels against, and adding yet another maindeck card that shits on SnT/Reanimator. The way I see it, it is only really a loss against Miracles, but even there it could snag a mentor or be vialed in to save a more precious creature from terminus, so that's not too bad.

It's also bad against Storm. Everyone seems high on Fiend Hunter lately, but I really have to wonder if it's better than Banisher Priest. Having 1 power makes it basically not-a-clock on an empty board whereas Priest is an 'okay' clock and Flickerwisp tricks come up so infrequently (you need: they have 2 creatures in play, plus you have vial on 3, plus Fiend Hunter, plus Flickerwisp - with a one-of, how many times per 100 games can you expect that?).

Also - playing 2 Mangara you've also already got some slower versions of that effect.

I have been really happy with a Path to Exile in my SB recently, so that's an option worth considering. Against Delver decks it's generally a strictly better StP.



@anyone else
What do we board out vs. shardless? I have a pretty stock main deck with 4 of all the usual guys and then 3 avengers and 3 crusaders for my flex spots but what do we take out? I usually lean towards the flickerwisps and the sword of fire and ice, but wanted to know what the consensus was

Depends on how much you have to bring in, but x/1s are always a good choice. I don't always hate keeping SoFI in actually, lets you make up some of their card advantage / get flyers past Strix. If you have some sense of whether their SB has Golgari Charms / Null Rods / etc that can help lead your hand.

[Luca Grease]

It's also bad against Storm. Everyone seems high on Fiend Hunter lately, but I really have to wonder if it's better than Banisher Priest. Having 1 power makes it basically not-a-clock on an empty board whereas Priest is an 'okay' clock and Flickerwisp tricks come up so infrequently (you need: they have 2 creatures in play, plus you have vial on 3, plus Fiend Hunter, plus Flickerwisp - with a one-of, how many times per 100 games can you expect that?).

Also - playing 2 Mangara you've also already got some slower versions of that effect.

I have been really happy with a Path to Exile in my SB recently, so that's an option worth considering. Against Delver decks it's generally a strictly better StP.



The Flickerwisp trick is a rare occurence for sure, but, for the role I want it to play, I generally just prefer the Hunter's beefiness to the extra point of power of Priest. Not dying to Disfigure against BUG, Punishing fire out of Loam/Jund, Forked Bolt/Grim Lavamancer against U/R Delver, Massacre against Reanimator, Pyroclasm/Kozilek's return against SnT, that's not irrelevant imo. Sure, it susceptible to Warping Wail, but that's about it. And while it's true that it's bad against Storm, that match-up, especially in g1 (which is the only time you'll have priest against them) is decided almost entirely on whether you get to see and cast your Thalias, and, to a lesser extent, Revokers. I have also considered maintaining the Mirran playset and shaving a Mangara instead, because of the redundancy you mentioned, I guess it'll be a meta call going forward.

As for the sideboard, I'm in a bit on a conundrum here. Basically, I am looking for a card that is relevant against Eldrazi, Delver (including U/R with basics), and the mirror, and I can find none that fits the bill. PTE is great against Eldrazi and most Delver lists, but I'd hate giving my opponent lands in the mirror and especially against UR when I'm trying to squeeze them with Thalia. Warping Wail is the other way around, great in the mirror and ok against Delver decks, but horrible against Eldrazi. I might go for it just because of the extra utility though, since countering sorceries is huge.

@ MARUNGO: As for Shardless, I generally take out at least some Revokers: even though they have good targets, I think we generally want to play an aggro role in this match-up, and Revoker's frail ass body can't get into the red zone if there's so much as a bread crumb on the other side of the table (and shardless has plenty of expendable bodies). It'll just be an extra frail Pithing Needle (a card I wouldn't bring in against them) that dies to a stiff wind. Also, RIP and, if you are running it, WLL already overlap with Revoker's functionality but in a much more impactful way.
Another option is cutting down on your Swords to Plowshares: I know this sounds crazy, but as another poster said some time ago, when you think about it, the only card you're happy targeting with them is Tarmogoyf. If you have a sufficient number of Mirran Crusaders/RIPs, you can go for the extreme approach of cutting them altogether to maximise your aggression. Trading 1 for 1 (and giving them life in the process) is playing their game, most of the times. Under no circumstances i would cut SoFI, as that card can be instrumental in getting past baleful strixes/chump blocking agents and making up for their card advantage, and you generally want to keep as much equipment in as possible to keep your Mystics relevant since they run Abrupt Decay. Shaving a Flickerwisp or two is not entirely unreasonable, but blinking a null rod to equip your SoFI or regenerating your germ token are both powerful, potentially game-changing plays, so I'd look at the Plows and Revokers first...

[iatee]

The Flickerwisp trick is a rare occurence for sure, but, for the role I want it to play, I generally just prefer the Hunter's beefiness to the extra point of power of Priest. Not dying to Disfigure against BUG, Punishing fire out of Loam/Jund, Forked Bolt/Grim Lavamancer against U/R Delver, Massacre against Reanimator, Pyroclasm/Kozilek's return against SnT, that's not irrelevant imo. Sure, it susceptible to Warping Wail, but that's about it. And while it's true that it's bad against Storm, that match-up, especially in g1 (which is the only time you'll have priest against them) is decided almost entirely on whether you get to see and cast your Thalias, and, to a lesser extent, Revokers. I have also considered maintaining the Mirran playset and shaving a Mangara instead, because of the redundancy you mentioned, I guess it'll be a meta call going forward.


It's true that there are 2 damage / -2/-2 removal spells out there, but they're not that frequently played. Looking here: http://mtgtop8.com/topcards?f=LE&meta=39 - the most currently played in order: StP, Abrupt Decay, Lightning Bolt, Warping Wail, Dismember, Council's Judgment - and then finally, Punishing Fire. I think Disfigure will probably be played less than Dismember in the near future as everyone's concerned about Eldrazi. Non-Lands Punishing Fire decks have Abrupt Decay / sometimes Bolt, so neither of these creatures is staying alive long. It's true that Fiend Hunter is better against Massacre (and Elesh), but the 1 damage clock matters vs Reanimator too.

I have only tried Fiend Hunter a few times and didn't like it (tended to die) and have never cast Banishing Priest in Legacy. So this is just theoretical. But the difference between 1 damage, 2 damage and 3 damage clocks in Magic can be pretty substantial and it feels more consistently relevant than the existence of lesser played removal spells.



As for the sideboard, I'm in a bit on a conundrum here. Basically, I am looking for a card that is relevant against Eldrazi, Delver (including U/R with basics), and the mirror, and I can find none that fits the bill. PTE is great against Eldrazi and most Delver lists, but I'd hate giving my opponent lands in the mirror and especially against UR when I'm trying to squeeze them with Thalia. Warping Wail is the other way around, great in the mirror and ok against Delver decks, but horrible against Eldrazi. I might go for it just because of the extra utility though, since countering sorceries is huge.


I think PTE is actually a little bit better than Warping Wail in the mirror - 2 mana vs 1 mana is huge in the match, hitting Serra Avenger / Mirran Crusader / etc. is pretty relevant, your colorless sources will be taxed and wasted. Eventually their extra land usually doesn't matter - it's only really bad if you have to use PTE t1 vs Mom.

I have been playing both in recent SBs, but usually way happier to see PTE in my hand when I want removal.

[c2232]

It's true that there are 2 damage / -2/-2 removal spells out there, but they're not that frequently played. Looking here: http://mtgtop8.com/topcards?f=LE&meta=39 - the most currently played in order: StP, Abrupt Decay, Lightning Bolt, Warping Wail, Dismember, Council's Judgment - and then finally, Punishing Fire. I think Disfigure will probably be played less than Dismember in the near future as everyone's concerned about Eldrazi. Non-Lands Punishing Fire decks have Abrupt Decay / sometimes Bolt, so neither of these creatures is staying alive long. It's true that Fiend Hunter is better against Massacre (and Elesh), but the 1 damage clock matters vs Reanimator too.

Fiend hunter also acts as a quality blocker against multiple creatures (Thalia, Bob, Young Pyromancer, Merfolk, Zombies, blah blah blah). I have used fiend hunter extensively and have found it to be very good. The combo literally never happens, I have played thousands of games with it and I have nailed that combo maybe twice. Also i think it depends on your local meta, in Maryland (land of endless lands) Fiend Hunter is very much preferred.

[iatee]

Maybe I'll try some A/B test.

It's true there are a lot of 2/1s out there, but Pyro/Bob are creatures that generally don't kill you because they were attacking and Thalia is bad in the mirror / shouldn't be in g2/g3s.

Because Fiend Hunter/Banisher Priest have huge 'remove me' targets on their backs, they're both worse as the game goes long enough, so the option that lets you kill your opponent faster seems better, rather than the better defensive option. But you've played it in more games than I have. Still, I think people who do play it to try and do mental checks when they do have it in a game - would Banisher Priest be better/worse/the same?

[Griselpuff]

http://mythicspoiler.com/soi/cards/thaliaslieutenant.html

At first I dismissed it, but this guy might be an interesting option. He needs to arrive later than Thalia and company to provide protection against -1/-1 effects. Might not be good enough but I like that he only costs 2.

[Plague Sliver]

I think I'd rather play Sunlance or Gut Shot than Path to Exile. Or just play 2x Council's Judgment as a catch-all.

[Koke_MTG]

I think Gut Shot is good if your metagame is plenty of small X/1creatures, but overall I prefer Dismember as 5th spot removal because you can use it for more matchups. It's decent against small creatures as well, good against Eldrazi and AggroLoam and fantastic against Grixis Delver killing Gurmag and specially Shaman who could be a nightmare in some other matchups too... In addition, I don't think eat 4 lifes could be a problem in our deck without fetchlands, Probes etc... Only could be a problem in specific situations when you are near the death against Delver or Eldrazi, decks that put a lot of preassure, and you should keep StP for this kind of situations. So some moths ago when I thought in play the 5th spot removal in my sideboard I preferred it over PtE, Sunlance and Gut Shot.

Running 2 x Council's Judgment as a catch-all is really good too. It is currently my configuration and I am really happy with it. I don't understand people that prefer other kind of removals just arguing that it's bad against Delver, when Delver players usually board out soft counters and you can cast it "easily", being good without an extremely high clock against. I consider 2 Council's Judgment one of the main bases of a good list. Of course if you feel that you need more removal than 4 StP and 2 Council because a specific metagame, could be good running the 5th spot removal. In the next big event I am going to play, probably I will run a single Dismember to improve Delver matchups because of the change of flipped cards. As it's hard to play a good Ratchet Bomb I will test some other options like Dismember.

[MGB]

Why is this deck no longer considered a DtB? What has changed in the meta to make this less powerful?

[ironclad8690]

Why is this deck no longer considered a DtB? What has changed in the meta to make this less powerful?

I am definitely looking in from the outside, but Mother of Runes doesn't seem so good vs Thought-Knot Seer.

Just because this deck isn't in the DTB for this month doesn't necessarily mean it isn't tier 1, I think the DTBs on here ebb and flow a bit with popularity and maybe some of the people that Death and Taxes appeals to jumped on the Eldrazi bandwagon.

[Barook]

I am definitely looking in from the outside, but Mother of Runes doesn't seem so good vs Thought-Knot Seer.

Just because this deck isn't in the DTB for this month doesn't necessarily mean it isn't tier 1, I think the DTBs on here ebb and flow a bit with popularity and maybe some of the people that Death and Taxes appeals to jumped on the Eldrazi bandwagon.
I'm currently enjoying playing Eldrazi more than D&T (and I'm waiting for EMA release to get Wasteland and Port back to sane prize levels on MTGO).

Besides, D&T was always a T1.5 deck that regularly rotates in & out the DTB section. Consistency is a bitch.

[Luca Grease]

Why is this deck no longer considered a DtB? What has changed in the meta to make this less powerful?

Nothing has changed, this deck has a pretty good matchup against the new legacy boogeyman (which I suspect will dwindle significantly in the near future once people satisfy their curiosity). DtB are calculated based on some statistical algorithm that depends, among other things, on how many people are playing the deck and, of course, luck, since this is a cards game after all. DnT has been phasing in and out of DtB status for a long time now, and that's actually good for us. As any meta deck, it is that much more powerful when it's off of people's radars...

[iatee]

I top4'd a 27 person Duals event today with the same list I've been running +1 Plains -1 Plateau. I put a Fiend Hunter and Pia/Kiran in the SB, never saw the Fiend Hunter.

Won a Savannah.

R1 12-Post (2-0, 1-0)

Lucky to play against my friend who always plays the deck. 12-Post is not unloseable (can still lose to early Show and Tell) but there are few decks I'd rather be matched up against with Imperial, whereas Mono-W is fairly unfavored.

G1 mull to 6, Magus is on top with my scry, Magus him early with no basics out myself, he actually has a basic Wastes but no colored sources and I have enough of a clock. He was playing 2 Thought Knot Seers, and if he had one in hand it woulda been rough.
G2 Thalia, Revoker on his Top + 3 Wastelands meant I didn't even need Magus.

R2 D+T (2-0, 2-0)

G1 We both mull, he t1 Moms, I t1 Mom. I get the SfM before he does, that's often all that matters game 1.
G2 I have Mangara lock, Revoker on his SfM he YOLO Cataclysms to try to even the board. I keep Revoker/Mangara/Karakas to his Flickerwisp/one land. I had more lands in hand too. Don't think anyone should be playing Cataclysm in the mirror.

R3 Storm (2-0, 3-0)

G1 He's on the play but doesn't have a fast enough hand, I have a t2 Thalia, t3 Wingmare.
G2 I have 2 Ethersworn 2 Wingmare, he Probe Therapies the Ethersworns, but can't beat the Wingmares. He had a one land hand that woulda won t2 or t3 if he drew a second land or Lotus Petal. Probably an okay decision, dunno.

R4 U/W Standstill Energy Field Pillowfort brew (2-1, 3-1)

G1 I punt this game by Porting his white source instead of his blue source near the end of the game - I hadn't played the against deck for a while and had to remember that Energy Field was one of his only outs at that spot. I remembered it *exactly* after he tapped the white land.
G2 He gets the Energy Field / RIP lock and has two RIPs in play - I have my two Flickerwisps on the battlefield already. Inexplicably he Detention Spheres my Flickerwisps, I had Relic-Warder for the D Sphere, had tutored for it last turn with Recruiter, get two new Flickerwisp triggers. That might have been my only out.
G3 Got Humility'd - one of the drawbacks to putting all your SB effects on creatures is you literally can't beat that card.

R5 Bant (2-1, 3-2) - source poster Maharis

G1 Keep a 1 land Vial hand, wasn't sure he had a lot of countermagic, but he did. Didn't draw a 2nd land for 5 turns, never was a real game.
G2 Had Vial hand, t2 Revoker his Hierarch, t3 Wingmare +SfM for Sofi. He GSZs a Trygon Predator out and has a Krosan Grip for my Vial, but was a turn too late.
G3 Keep a 6 land Recruiter, 2 of which were Wasteland. I saw a lot of Duals but unfortunately he t1 Noble Hierarchs, so my 'Waste him t1, t2, draw into stuff' plan didn't get far, especially since I drew into more lands. Definitely shouldn't have kept.

R6 Miracles (2-0, 4-2)

G1 Keep a hand with a lot of mana denial and Cavern. Don't have a great clock but he only has double Counterbalance and I can Port him off white. Kill him slowly with Thalia beatdown.
G2 Have a t1 Vial, Vial'd in Mom gets Staticastered, I StP the Staticaster. Cast t3 Wingmare, t4 he plays Mentor with one mana up, I vial in SfM, get SoFI, hook it up to Wingmare and kill his Mentor. He Terminuses but I have 2 Recruiters + more stuff in hand and a Vial on 3. Get to win with style off Pia/Kiran.

T8 Eldrazi

G1 He t1 Karakas, which was a relief, I t1 Vial, he t2 Eye of Ugin, Matter Reshaper. I StP it and Wasteland. He plays some more small Eldrazi but I have a Magus in time. He has a Dismember for Magus, but I have a Flickerwisp + Vial on 3 I've been sandbagging.
G2 He plays a 2/2 Endless One then Revoker, I play a t2 Jitte and Revoker / Wasteland t3. He plays Mimic. I play my Magus. Go down to 1 life and trade Revoker for Mimic before I get Jitte online, he doesn't have a Dismember and the Jitte'd Magus wins.

T4 UW Standstill pillowfort again

G1 I Mangara one of his two basic Plains, then Magus. He had his other one in hand. His only win con is Helm/RiP and I had 2 Revokers on Helm + Mom and he had enough Energy Field / RIPs in play that I was just hoping to deck him, eventually he has StP a Revoker, Stifle Mom trigger, StP other Revoker on his turn.
G2 I have a t2 Thalia t3 Wingmare hand that woulda won if I had a Cavern. Instead he FoWs Thalia and Counterspells Wingmare. I Magus again early, possibly too early, but I wanted to cut him off double white for Supreme Verdict / Humility. He wins a turn before I would draw my 2nd Plains for Relic Warder.

He lost to Eldrazi in the finals. 2 Eldrazi + 1 MUD in the t8 and another Eldrazi 10th. All the Chalice players did well.

Not really that bothered about losing to the UW Energy Field deck twice, I've actually never lost to that player before, he just drew his Energy Fields. Enchantment decks mostly just rely on most people being unable to interact with enchantments because nobody else plays enchantments - enchantments are kinda a bug in the game for that reason. More Flickerwisps would have been good, admittedly, but I think one Relic Warder is still enough for the SB in an open meta. Until decks like Miracles are regularly playing Humility, I think I can live without a Humility plan.

[Gheizen64]

T8 Eldrazi

G1 He t1 Karakas, which was a relief, I t1 Vial, he t2 Eye of Ugin, Matter Reshaper. I StP it and Wasteland. He plays some more small Eldrazi but I have a Magus in time. He has a Dismember for Magus, but I have a Flickerwisp + Vial on 3 I've been sandbagging.
G2 He plays a 2/2 Endless One then Revoker, I play a t2 Jitte, he plays Revoker, and a Mimic. I play my only Revoker and a Magus. Go down to 1 life before I get Jitte online, he doesn't have a Dismember and the Jitte'd Magus wins.


This is an illegal play that i see done too often. Guys you have to be more careful about this! So many frauds using urborg+ ugin to cast TKS or double reshapers when they have exactly 0 colorless mana.

[iatee]

Yep you're right, I didn't catch that. I know the guy personally and don't think he was trying to sneak one past me. I don't think he's been on the deck for long.

[Finn]

Nothing has changed, this deck has a pretty good matchup against the new legacy boogeyman (which I suspect will dwindle significantly in the near future once people satisfy their curiosity). DtB are calculated based on some statistical algorithm that depends, among other things, on how many people are playing the deck and, of course, luck, since this is a cards game after all. DnT has been phasing in and out of DtB status for a long time now, and that's actually good for us. As any meta deck, it is that much more powerful when it's off of people's radars...

Luca, the deck is here it stay.

[iatee]

Yeah if anything the deck is probably going to be underplayed relative to how strong it is. It's similar to what I was talking about with Burn earlier - it's not very complex or fun to play compared to a t1 blue deck in legacy, so only new players and pure spikes will be on it in the long-term. Unlike Burn, it's t1 not 1.5.

[Luca Grease]

Luca, the deck is here it stay.

Yes, that was the gist of what I wrote.

[zebhillard]

Well, I picked up my 3rd Recruiter after a load of trades today, along with finishing out my set of Caverns (finally). I'm back to the drawing board with Imperial Taxes and prepping for the weekly Legacy this Thursday night once again.

[GrimoirePath]

Played Scg Indy yesterday. Was 3-3 when I dropped to head home. Beat Shardless Bug, RG Lands, and Burn. Lost to Storm and Infect Twice. I played with Two Caverns, four Mirran Crusaders, Two Serra Avengers, and two Mangara. I think my biggest misplays were phase questions - when to play this or that, their EoT or my main.

I have read people saying that it is always correct to play turn one Vial if you can, but against infect, it was always FoW'ed or dazed. Is it smart when you know youre playing against daze to wait until turn two and to have a second mana up (obviously when they are on the play)?

I played one spicey card, because thats just how i have fun, and it was preacher in the sideboard. Brought it in against lands and landed it when I had an active mom. He basically said he had no answer. We played it out, and I actually did have to eventually sac him to Tabernacle, but by then I had Batterskull beating down for the win. Oh, and on the RG lands note, great advice to all who said to board out your swords to plowshares. Game one I had to win by dealing 80 damage! I got there, but what a grind. Game two was much quicker not relying on Swording Lage.

[iatee]

Played Scg Indy yesterday. Was 3-3 when I dropped to head home. Beat Shardless Bug, RG Lands, and Burn. Lost to Storm and Infect Twice. I played with Two Caverns, four Mirran Crusaders, Two Serra Avengers, and two Mangara. I think my biggest misplays were phase questions - when to play this or that, their EoT or my main.

I have read people saying that it is always correct to play turn one Vial if you can, but against infect, it was always FoW'ed or dazed. Is it smart when you know youre playing against daze to wait until turn two and to have a second mana up (obviously when they are on the play)?

I played one spicey card, because thats just how i have fun, and it was preacher in the sideboard. Brought it in against lands and landed it when I had an active mom. He basically said he had no answer. We played it out, and I actually did have to eventually sac him to Tabernacle, but by then I had Batterskull beating down for the win. Oh, and on the RG lands note, great advice to all who said to board out your swords to plowshares. Game one I had to win by dealing 80 damage! I got there, but what a grind. Game two was much quicker not relying on Swording Lage.

When Infect is on the play, you definitely can't afford to have a Vial-on-0 on their T3. It's just going to be way too slow. They'll probably find use for that Daze at some point regardless, so letting them set themselves back a land drop on T1 (the only point it really matters for a land-light deck like Infect) is not the worst. It probably means they aren't winning T2 or 3, which is what you're most scared of, since if they were, Daze would be protecting their win.

There are some other scenarios vs Daze decks where it might be right to play your Vial around Daze (e.g. they don't have a clock / you can afford to play around Daze) but I think it's usually right to YOLO your Vial, Daze decks are tempo decks and a Vial that doesn't hit 2 until turn 4 might not be much better than no Vial at all.

In general, playing around Daze when they don't always have Daze just makes their deck more effective. If a deck is playing 4, they'll have it maybe 40% of the time g1, and less g2 and 3 as they often side them out against D+T. If you play as if they have it 100% of the time, you're giving them a free Thalia effect. So it really only makes sense to play around it when you *need* something to resolve to win/not lose, e.g. a StP for their Blighted Agent.

[iatee]

My friend who started playing Imperial Taxes recently (the other d2 at the SCG event) has been playing with this guy as his fun-of:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/mm/17.jpg

What do people think of this as a SB card? For Imperial you get the tutor-bonus. It's pretty brutal in the mirror, vs Painter, Stoneblade or MUD. Also decent vs Fish, Miracles and has some application elsewhere. Has anyone (even Mono-W) tried the card before?

[Luca Grease]

My friend who started playing Imperial Taxes recently (the other d2 at the SCG event) has been playing with this guy as his fun-of:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/mm/17.jpg

What do people think of this as a SB card? For Imperial you get the tutor-bonus. It's pretty brutal in the mirror, vs Painter, Stoneblade or MUD. Also decent vs Fish, Miracles and has some application elsewhere. Has anyone (even Mono-W) tried the card before?

I remember Ben Nash (first person to win an SCG open with DNT, goes by the alias From Cairo here on the source) experimenting with this a looong time ago. Not sure what his final conclusion was. Might be worth it in W/R list because of the tutoring option, but I'd rather run a mixture of Relic Warder and Council's Judgement in a mono white list unless your meta is riddled with artifact/enchantment decks.

By the way, I have found disenchant bears (relic warders) to be rather disappointing against Miracles, so much that I am considering no longer boarding them in. More often than not, your only target will be a CB, which will either: 1) not be much of a problem because you already have vial/caverns 2) counter the creature itself. Other than that, the thing I'm most afraid of is probably Humility, which obviously Leonin does nothing against. They're good if your opponent is running a jankier list with stuff like Energy Field/Rip/Helm or even back to basics, but I wouldn't necessarily bring them in against stock Miracles lists.
Instead, especially post board, I see Miracles increasingly trying to combat us with creatures of their own: Containment Priest, Vendillion Clique, Izzet Staticaster, Monastery Mentor, even Sulfur Elemental occasionally (obviously not in conjunction with Mentor). All of these have the potential to mess up your plan of attack big time. In spite of this, I am still reluctant to leave any plows in after sideboard, as you generally need as many bodies as you can get in this MU, and plow is so easily countered by Counterbalance anyway (not to mention, giving them life sucks). This is why I am starting to board my sb Fiend Hunter in in addition to the Council's Judgements. Having a body to pick up equipment (and being much more difficult to counter) make this a much better suited card for the match-up, imo. You can even target one of your own creatures in a pinch, which is more relevant than you might think if you can vial it in at instant speed to save something from a plow (and then force them to deal with the FH by picking up equipment, for instance) or it can save a more valuable creature (perhaps one with an ETB effect) from a Terminus. Since the Miracles MU is largely about striking the right balance between presenting enough pressure/disruption and not overextending, I'd say this card provides nice tactical options in that respect.

[iatee]

I have been keeping 4 STP in vs Miracles (going to 3 + Warping Wail lately, Warping Wail serving as semi-removal) and having a lot of success with it. Like, the other day I had to kill both a Staticaster and a Mentor within the first 4 turns. The StPs in my hand *always* seem to do something post-board. I think the RW version gets to cheat on creature density though, cause you just need to draw a Recruiter and you get to stop worrying about running out of ammo.

I'm not worried about Plow being countered by Counterbalance - if they kept in Counterbalances it usually suggests they don't know how to play the matchup anyway. Like, post-board it's normal for a Miracles deck these days to have 4+ very relevant creatures and no Counterbalances, so it just seems logical to leave in plenty of StP for those games.

I think I would always bring in Witness vs Miracles, even though it's only 'okay' - it messes with Tops, Pithing Needle, Back to Basics, and it isn't an X/1. It's a bit awkward in that you can't both keep it up both as pressure and keep it up to threaten a Top-activation, unlike something like Pridemage. It's better than Relic-Warder, at least, which I agree isn't even worth bringing in. Witness is clearly a bomb in the matchups where it can reliably kill more than one thing (Mirror, Painter, etc.) - so my real question is how many other random decks is it also 'okay' against.

I dunno about Fiend Hunter vs Miracles, you don't always have a Vial on 3, you can't Fiend Hunter 'safe zone' your guy in many other spots since you risk getting blown out by StP etc. It's not a real clock on its own and a very short-term solution to a Mentor - like if they Terminus, now you get to deal with Mentor on an empty board.

[Luca Grease]

I'm not worried about Plow being countered by Counterbalance - if they kept in Counterbalances it usually suggests they don't know how to play the matchup anyway. Like, post-board it's normal for a Miracles deck these days to have 4+ very relevant creatures and no Counterbalances, so it just seems logical to leave in plenty of StP for those games.



I gotta say, this has not been my experience at all lately. Most Miracle pilots I've played and talked with seem to focus their post board strategy on dealing with Vial (Containment Priest, Wear/Tear, Explosives, Needle, or simply Force of Will), and establishing a CB lock after that. In fact, this is one of the reasons why additional caverns are so good in the MU. Right play or not, if they're leaving in 3-4 Counterbalances I don't feel comfortable relying on 1 mana, often dead removal spells that might have been threats instead. If I notice them taking out their CBs then sure, but I'd rather make sure of that first. It also brings up the question of what you side out against Miracles if you're not taking out your plows: assuming you have at least 3-4 cards that you want to bring in, what gets the axe then? Certainly not any humans since that's the whole idea behind running multiple caverns, and definitely no Revokers either. I don't see myself lowering the Flickerwisp and Mystics count either, since those cards provide much needed value (SoFI is one of our best cards for sure) in the matchup. I guess Jitte is a safe cut if you're leaving plows in, but then what? A plains?

As for Fiend Hunter, I'm not saying it's great against Miracles, but being a human and having a body, I'd still consider it an upgrade over a plow as long as my opponent leaves Counterbalance in...

[iatee]

I gotta say, this has not been my experience at all lately. Most Miracle pilots I've played and talked with seem to focus their post board strategy on dealing with Vial (Containment Priest, Wear/Tear, Explosives, Needle, or simply Force of Will), and establishing a CB lock after that. In fact, this is one of the reasons why additional caverns are so good in the MU. Right play or not, if they're leaving in 3-4 Counterbalances I don't feel comfortable relying on 1 mana, often dead removal spells that might have been threats instead. If I notice them taking out their CBs then sure, but I'd rather make sure of that first. It also brings up the question of what you side out against Miracles if you're not taking out your plows: assuming you have at least 3-4 cards that you want to bring in, what gets the axe then? Certainly not any humans since that's the whole idea behind running multiple caverns, and definitely no Revokers either. I don't see myself lowering the Flickerwisp and Mystics count either, since those cards provide much needed value (SoFI is one of our best cards for sure) in the matchup. I guess Jitte is a safe cut once if you're leaving plows in, but then what? A plains?

Lately I take out Jitte, a Stp, Magus, Magus and bring in Crusader, Crusader, Pia/Kiran (or a 3rd Crusader), Warping Wail. So go heavier on immediate threats/humans + don't Blood Moon your own Caverns. If I have extra stuff to bring in like a Pithing Needle or Ratchet Bomb, I'll take out a Wingmare or Flickerwisp as a small hedge against Staticaster. Ever since Mentor+Staticaster became big I've left 3-4 StP in and can't recall ever losing a game with a dead one in hand. I am way more scared of them setting up an early Mentor or Staticaster than I am of the game going long, since this deck feels more inevitable than their win con.

In my experience something like 20% of Miracles players keep Counterbalance in against me g2/g3. With 3 Caverns there is a very good chance they'll have seen one G1, which is gonna help lead their hand even if they're not experienced in the match-up enough to take it out anyway. I think it is 100% correct to take them out even against Mono-W with no Caverns. They have some decent stuff to bring in, they need to keep FoWs for Cataclysm/Vial and they can't afford to play a card that is frequently just-dead, even if the upside exists. I honestly see the card Counterbalance so infrequently that sometimes I forget it's a part of the deck, let alone the reason why so many people resent playing the deck.

I have been playing Imperial w/ 3 Caverns for long enough that I don't know how much of this advice does or doesn't translate to mono-W (or mono-W with multiple Caverns), which has a faster clock but less inevitability. But I can say that hedging on StPs has post-board worked out for me very well, and has won me countless games. When it's not unreasonable to expect them to have something like 5-6 very good creatures post-board, it seems like Fiend Hunter might want some backup...

[Luca Grease]

Lately I take out Jitte, a Stp, Magus, Magus and bring in Crusader, Crusader, Pia/Kiran (or a 3rd Crusader), Warping Wail. So go heavier on immediate threats/humans + don't Blood Moon your own Caverns. If I have extra stuff to bring in like a Pithing Needle or Ratchet Bomb, I'll take out a Wingmare or Flickerwisp as a small hedge against Staticaster. Ever since Mentor+Staticaster became big I've left 3-4 StP in and can't recall ever losing a game with a dead one in hand. I am way more scared of them setting up an early Mentor or Staticaster than I am of the game going long, since this deck feels more inevitable than their win con.

In my experience something like 20% of Miracles players keep Counterbalance in against me g2/g3. With 3 Caverns there is a very good chance they'll have seen one G1, which is gonna help lead their hand even if they're not experienced in the match-up enough to take it out anyway. I think it is 100% correct to take them out even against Mono-W with no Caverns. They have some decent stuff to bring in, they need to keep FoWs for Cataclysm/Vial and they can't afford to play a card that is frequently just-dead, even if the upside exists. I honestly see the card Counterbalance so infrequently that sometimes I forget it's a part of the deck, let alone the reason why so many people resent playing the deck.

I have been playing Imperial w/ 3 Caverns for long enough that I don't know how much of this advice does or doesn't translate to mono-W (or mono-W with multiple Caverns), which has a faster clock but less inevitability. But I can say that hedging on StPs has post-board worked out for me very well, and has won me countless games. When it's not unreasonable to expect them to have something like 5-6 very good creatures post-board, it seems like Fiend Hunter might want some backup...

You boarding makes a lot of sense for a W/R list, but in a monowhite, double cavern shell already maxing out on Mirran Crusaders and not playing Wingmares, that leaves me with only Jitte and StP (and perhaps one Flickerwisp if I really want to push it) as potential side outs. Besides, I'm bringing 2 Council Judgements and a Warping Wail together with the Fiend Hunter (I've decided to cut both Cataclysm since our last discussion), so I still have 3-4 ways (other than Mangara and equipments) of answering problematic creatures that can also fill other roles if needed. So my boarding against Miracles currently looks like this: -4 StP, +2 Judgement +1 FH +1 Wail. I will try leaving 1 plow in and take out the Jitte instead, since jitte seems very very bad as an answer to Staticaster.

[iatee]

Yeah I guess if you're bringing in two Council's Judgements and a Wail you're not actually going down in removal much when it comes down to it.

[Megadeus]

Anyone play a green splash at all recently? A maverick death and taxes style hybrid I guess

[nedleeds]

Internet (http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?token=Decks&tname=&nlow=&nhigh=&from=&to=&player=&aname=&dname=&format=Legacy&main=aether+vial%3B+savannah&nomain=&side=&noside=&strict=on)

[iatee]

Teeg is too narrow to maindeck now that DTT isn't everywhere. Pridemage is okay, having a disenchant main is not terrible, especially if your deck is built to take advantage of exalted. And Sylvan Library is just a very good card, despite being a little bit of an awkward fit for the deck overall.

Having played a (very greedy) splash for a year straight now I believe the costs to mana inconsistency are not nearly as large as people imagine, and I would imagine you could build a GW build that performs about as well as Mono-W in the current meta - but you probably don't want many of the normal splash creatures main. Sylvan Library + better SB cards are probably 'worth' the drawbacks of a slightly less consistent manabase. If Eldrazi is the problem-to-solve then a light Green splash doesn't offer much that W doesn't, though I guess you could go even more Mavericky and start playing KotR.

[iatee]

Speaking of Green, yesterday Bahra streamed a new D+T variant with 4 Caverns, almost all humans (+Sfm, Revoker), 0 flyers and 4 Mayor of Avabruck, 4 Recruiter. Mayor's been a card I've been wanting to test for a while, at least as a one-of, after seeing it in Vintage lists.

The deck had mixed results due to a few punts / the fact that it wasn't tuned / losing to an Eldrazi God hand, but Mayor of Avabruck was a serious threat. The card is like Young Pyromancer in that it doesn't 'just win' upon resolution but it takes over the game within a few turns if if left unchecked. The most interesting thing about it was that on multiple occasions opponents were forced to awkwardly sequence their Brainstorms just to prevent Mayor from flipping, which means that the card + any other Innistrad werewolves actually have an interesting taxing effect attached.

I'm at least convinced that the card is 'a playable legacy card', whether it's in Naya taxes, a WG D+T humans list without red, actual-Maverick or a 4c/5c human tribal build, similar to the Vintage ones (e.g. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/19-09-14-4c-humans/). The last one would probably not be classifiable as Death and Taxes anymore and probably shouldn't play Port and Magus of the Moon. But I wouldn't be surprised if you could make an 'about as good as legacy Slivers' deck out of it that would be a lot of fun to play.

[Koke_MTG]

Yesterday I played another small event at my LGS winning it with 4-0. I am really happy with latest tournaments I've played (my overall record in the last 4 events is 15-2-2).

This time I won 2 Shardless BUG, BUG Control and Esper Stoneblade.

I changed a bit the way to go with my list, focusing games a bit less on the mana denial plan because of the change of the metagame caused by Eldrazi.

Right now I'm trying to focus the list in grindy matchups that are increasing in quantity, getting a bit worse Delver matchups (still being good matchups in general) and Infect, that is the matchup in which I see the change worse but if you know how to play the matchup you have a real chance.

Well, this is the most recent list I'm running:

MAINDECK:

4 x Mother of Runes
4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 x Stoneforge Mystic
4 x Phyrexian Revoker
2 x Serra Avenger
4 x Flickerwisp
2 x Mirran Crusader
2 x Mangara of Corondor

4 x Aether Vial
4 x Swords to Plowshares
1 x Batterskull
1 x Sword of Fire and Ice
1 x Umezawa's Jitte

4 x Wasteland
4 x Rishadan Port
7 x Plains
4 x Flagstones of Trokair
3 x Karakas
1 x Cavern of Souls

SIDEBOARD:

2 x Council's Judgment
2 x Cataclysm
2 x Pithing Needle
2 x Mirran Crusader
3 x Ethersworn Canonist
1 x Sword of War and Peace
3 x Rest in Peace

I left out the set of Vryn Wingmare to improve specially against Shardless BUG and Eldrazi (although I had a great record against Eldrazi even with Vryn Wingmare version) among others, having also a maindeck solution against new hate cards as Moat could be, but probably I'd return to 4 x Vryn Wingmare for a major event because there are a lot of Delver decks in those tournaments as they are super consistent. Other options could be Ratchet Bomb or Dismember as sideboard cards. I really like that we have different options for flex slots for lots of different situations and metagames and they change the playstyle a lot, letting you to improve with your deck and in general as a Legacy player.

[Stevestamopz]

Having played a (very greedy) splash for a year straight now I believe the costs to mana inconsistency are not nearly as large as people imagine, a

Yeah I agree. I've been playing 2 basics in R/W since the deck's inception and it's fine.

You do however get BTFO out by WW taxes if they get even a mild mana-disruption + revoker draw, so that's something to keep in mind.

[iatee]

Tonight I played an Imperial list with

3 Plains / 1 Plateau / 3 Cavern
2 Flickerwisp / 2 Wingmare as the only flyers
1 Mangara / 1 Fiend Hunter as the last flex spots

and a SB of:
3 Ethersworn
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Relic Warder
1 Containment Priest
1 Fireslinger
1 Manic Vandal

I beat BUG Delver, Fish and Burn and split with Infect.

I liked the Fiend Hunter main, but I did play 4 creature decks. It was good in one game vs BUG Delver and potentially game winning in another vs Fish. In both cases the body wasn't particularly relevant and in one case a 2/2 Banisher Priest would have marginally better. I am still a bit hesitant about a main deck 1/3 vs Storm/Miracles. But I guess the Miracles matchup is strong enough that it's not that terrible, and Storm isn't in a great spot right now.

I think going down on flyers is okay if post-board there are 4 STP, 2 PTE and 2 Fiend Hunters for Delvers / opposing flyers. Having 8 pieces of pure removal post-board makes this deck play so differently vs creature decks.

I have yet to regret going to 3 Plains / 1 Plateau. I think it's very likely the right configuration.

[zebhillard]

Tonight I played an Imperial list with

3 Plains / 1 Plateau / 3 Cavern
2 Flickerwisp / 2 Wingmare as the only flyers
1 Mangara / 1 Fiend Hunter as the last flex spots


Mayor of Avabruck being mentioned earlier piqued my interest and I've been working with it, but haven't had a chance to take it out yet.

My mana-base is currently very similar to yours:
3 Plains / 1 Plateau / 3 Cavern / 5 Fetch / 4 Wasteland / 4 Port / 3 Karakas

Normal 11 Spells

And my creature-base is:
4x SFM, Mom, Thalia / 3x Recruiter, Revoker / 2x Flickerwisp, Magus, Mayor / 1x Mangara, Vryn Wingmare

The SB is in flux right now, as I'm going back and forth between 3 Crusader, Canonist, RIP and then a slew of 1-of's to tutor for if need be.

[iatee]

Yeah Mayor is very interesting, I get the sense that there's *some* place in legacy for that card - it's a bear that just runs away with the game on its own if left unchecked, which actually puts it among an elite group of cards in the game. It's even stronger in a deck that has 'too many targets' for their removal, since something usually ends up alive.

Maybe this deck is the home, or maybe some sort of zoo or true human tribal deck could use it (4 Thalia, 4 Bob, 4 Mayor, 4 Mother of Runes, etc.). Let us know how the testing goes.

[iatee]

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ap/18.jpg

Could this guy come in vs anything beyond Infect?

[c2232]

Could this guy come in vs anything beyond Infect?

Wirewood Sybiote and Quirion Ranger...... very interesting

[AsmodeusDM]

I've always played at least 1 Fiend Hunter main in my Imperial builds and have never regretted it.

Going that low on Flickerwisps seems somehow wrong, however, that card is just so strong in D&T (and even stronger perhaps in Imperial).

You mention "strength against Miracles" and I agree. What initially drew me to the red splash was the power of chain imperial recruiters against Miracles; also the incidental 3 Caverns was very strong.

However, at SCG Indy I went 0-3 vs. Miracles... and the games played out in a strange way.

First (quick aside) I actually went 0-1-2 vs. Miracles... however... in the 2 draw situations I choose to concede to my opponent; because... well.... maybe because I'm an idiot.. but i hate draws and don't want to be locked into a draw bracket. However, I'm tired of miracles players (good or bad) feeling like they don't actually have to win 2 to get a match win because they can just win 1; then as game 3 ticks to a close point at the board and say "I kinda have a lock out here... do you concede?" This bothers me. The point of a magic deck is to be able to play 3 games in 50 minutes and win 2 of them; not be able to win at least 1.. and then hope for a strong enough board state to convince your opponent you should concede.

Okay anyway back to the Miracles/Taxes match-up.

I have felt like Magus is a dead card vs. them; although Bahra seems to feel the card should be left in.

What was confusing then was that vs. all 3 miracles opponents they sided IN their blood moons. (I sided out my Magus's). I told Bahra this and he said "well they are bad miracles players." Perhaps. But I found that not having access to Karakas, and (most important) Cavern of Souls was a huge hit to me... and the Blood Moon actually made it quite difficult for me to win... the exception being able to easily cast the sideboard P&K I brought in.

Without access to Cavern or Vial (all opponents brought in at least 1, if not more, wear/tears) I found it almost impossible to recover from the first Terminus in which a countertop lock or semi-lock had been acheived. Granted they didn't have any threats either (hence the technical draws)... but without Cavern I felt like once Vial was taken care of .. I had very little hope of getting a creature resolved.

Thoughts?

[Arsenal]

@iatee: Devoted Caretaker would be my vote if we're looking at pseudo-Mom #5.

[iatee]

I always side out Magus vs Miracles. Caverns are too good and Miracles fetches for basics early. I have won some g1s with Magus, but you can't count on it.

I think you just got unlucky and probably did play against bad Miracles players. If Blood Moon wasn't color screwing you and was merely keeping you off Cavern, your Vials were dead/offline + they had Countertop-lock, then you lost a game that any Death and Taxes build would lose. They had the right cards at the right time.

Leaving in Counterbalance g2/g3 is a bad decision for Miracles - they can't expect to hit Wear/Tear + Blood Moons reliably, and the card is terrible against 4 Vial / 3 Cavern otherwise. It shouldn't be left in vs Mono-W, but especially shouldn't be left in vs Imperial, which is more likely to have Caverns and generally has a higher density of 3 drops that can sneak through a live Counterbalance regardless.

Counterbalance/Blood Moon are only good in certain situations - they happened to hit those situations. Far more frequently Counterbalance is a totally dead card. Blood Moon has some value but also shuts off their ability to shuffle to a Terminus and costs them a card while doing so. They're playing 2 more spells that don't reliably interact with creatures. Basically we should side out *our* Blood Moons for the exact same reason they should side out their Counterbalances and not bring in their Blood Moons - it can be quite good, it can be quite bad, it's better to play cards that don't have that risk attached. (Back to Basics, the other Miracles Eldrazi tech, seems way better for that reason, both against us and in general...)

Sometimes they'll get away with this and Counter-top lock is miserable when it gets you, but if you're already playing 4 Vial and 3 Cavern of Souls, you're already doing about as much as you'll ever want to do to ensure that you don't have to worry about it.

[iatee]

@iatee: Devoted Caretaker would be my vote if we're looking at pseudo-Mom #5.

Yeah that's not the worst, though it doesn't do much during the first few turns when you're curving out and it really matters. But the Mom-effect is more the extra-upside - the primary use would be to destroy Infect w/ an uncounterable 2 drop that doesn't care about naturalize effects.

Good call on Wirewood/Ranger, c2232. I think it would definitely come in. So there's two matchups. I think you bring it in in the mirror to suck up STPs and Flickerwisp activations. It's not incredible in either of those matchups, but it's pretty decent.

Against black decks you'd be bringing in another x/1 which is not really where you want to be.

[iatee]

First (quick aside) I actually went 0-1-2 vs. Miracles... however... in the 2 draw situations I choose to concede to my opponent; because... well.... maybe because I'm an idiot.. but i hate draws and don't want to be locked into a draw bracket. However, I'm tired of miracles players (good or bad) feeling like they don't actually have to win 2 to get a match win because they can just win 1; then as game 3 ticks to a close point at the board and say "I kinda have a lock out here... do you concede?" This bothers me. The point of a magic deck is to be able to play 3 games in 50 minutes and win 2 of them; not be able to win at least 1.. and then hope for a strong enough board state to convince your opponent you should concede.

Also, in the future you need to ignore your previous losses vs Miracles as bad luck / variance, take the draw in the future and embrace the draw bracket. You're playing Cavern of Souls and Imperial Recruiters and have an insane g1 against Miracles. Get in that draw bracket.

Also, giving Miracles players unearned wins allows them to play more optimally than they would given time constraints and play a deck with fewer win cons / more answers. If you're gonna play a deck with 3 win cons in the 60 + 1000 Top activations, the burden's on you to win twice in 50 minutes. So conceding is wrong for multiple reasons.

[mrjumbo03]

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ap/18.jpg

Could this guy come in vs anything beyond Infect?

Wouldn't Spellskite just do the same, and actually has use for some other matchups?

[iatee]

Spellskite dies to Nature's Claim, Grip, Corrupter, and gets shut off by Needle - all of which they're bringing in against us anyway and the Naturalize effects are probably going to be played in higher numbers now due to Eldrazi. Obviously you'd play it and it would be great most of the time, but this is a little better overall, and can't even be Daze'd if you have a Cavern, beating some of their strongest hands. It can be Piracy Charmed, for what it's worth.

Vs. non-Infect, this doesn't block well but doesn't cost life to use, which can add up. Spellskite isn't incredible vs Burn since they're bringing in a pile of Smashes and we have no U mana, can be Revokered/Needled by DnT and Rec Sage'd by Elves. But it is a solid wall.

[DarthVicious]

Unexpectedly Absent

Just an idea I'll be testing in my fairly stock mono white list. (3 Mirran, 3 Avenger, 2 Mangara, 21 land)

Points of interest:
It messes with miracle cards and counterbalance triggers.
It messes with cascade triggers.
It gets stronger in response to a fetch/tutor effect.
It can save a creature from removal.
It can get any targetable nonland permanent off the field.

Loads of interactions for such a simple effect... :)


Edit: Just picked up the deck a few weeks ago and loving it.

[Esper3k]

Out of selfish curiosity since my meta is infested with D&T right now, what do you guys feel are your worst matchups?

I know Elves is one of the worst ones, but I'm curious to hear the perspective from the D&T side. Thanks!

[Arsenal]

I dislike seeing Shardless BUG. They run maindeck sweepers (and usually more of the same in the sb) that get around our traditionally Mom protection, they run basics + DRS to play around our mana denial plan and it's hard to swing past stuff like Baleful Strix and Goyf. Definitely a matchup a hope to avoid if possible.

[Barook]

I dislike seeing Shardless BUG. They run maindeck sweepers (and usually more of the same in the sb) that get around our traditionally Mom protection, they run basics + DRS to play around our mana denial plan and it's hard to swing past stuff like Baleful Strix and Goyf. Definitely a matchup a hope to avoid if possible.
While it isn't as good as it used to be, Mirran Crusaser is still excellent in this match-up. If you expect lots of Shardless, SB Wilt-Leaf Liege is probably a good idea, too.

[Arsenal]

Agreed. I've moved to 2 maindeck Mirran Crusader for that very reason. Surprisingly, my 3 sb Warping Wail do major work vs. Shardless as many of their high impact spells, especially postboard, are sorceries. Also neatly deals with their DRS and Baleful Strix if nothing else.

[iatee]

Imperial Taxes is pretty thrilled to see Shardless, it always felt like a fair matchup when I played Mono-W.

The worst D+T matchups are:

- Combo decks that go off on t1, as there's no room for interaction
- Combo decks that are creature-based not spell based (Infect, Elves) as we're removal-light
- Decks with an insane amount of removal (Jund, Aggro Loam)
- For mono-W, 12-Post generally can out-mana the tax effects pretty quickly and just needs to resolve one threat to effectively win

Creature-based decks that do fair-but-unfair things (Knight of the Reliquary, TNN, etc.) and play a lot of lands can be slightly unfavored depending on the build.

[Adastreia]

I have a question about side boarding.
My current 15 card sb is:
1 containment priest
2 cataclysm
2 canonist
1 needle
2 rip
1 enlightened tutor
2 wilt-leaf liege
1 seal of cleansing
2 council's judgement
1 Grafidiggers cage
This sidebaord has served me very well against lots of matchups, i do however run into some problems dealing with entreat the angels and elves (although i am already aware this is a horrible matchup). I was thinking of dropping the containment priest and 1 other card for 2 hallowed moonlights. My friends believe its a bit too narrow as having a card to deal with a specific situation is wrong, which i agree with. There are other situations the card is useful, it effectively counters GSZ and NO, as well as empty the warrens and other things of a similar nature. There is a large possibility I'm playing the match up wrong and I need more practice, but i would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
Cheers

[Arsenal]

Warping Wail is your friend. Counters Entreat and Terminus (the primary Miracles tool that wrecks us), and then deals with effectively every card in Elves (hits virtually all their dudes + counters their NO, GSZ and Glimpse). This is also a boon in the mirror as it hits virtually every D&T dude and gets around Mom protection.

[Barook]

Warping Wail is your friend. Counters Entreat and Terminus (the primary Miracles tool that wrecks us), and then deals with effectively every card in Elves (hits virtually all their dudes + counters their NO, GSZ and Glimpse). This is also a boon in the mirror as it hits virtually every D&T dude and gets around Mom protection.
I agree from my experience with Eldrazi that Warping Wail is a quite flexible tool. But what does your manabase look like to support it? 8 colorless sources clearly isn't enough to properly support Wail.

[Koke_MTG]

This is the reason that stops me to give Warping Wail a try. We have a low number of colorless sources and we want to play aggresively with them. There are a very little room for reactive plays on D&T.

On the other hand, I agree with iatee words about worse matchups. I would include classic UWR Delver that could see more play on the actual metagame and has one of the best wincons against us (TNN + Umezawa's Jitte) apart from a bunch of removal. Other matchups like Jund can be improved with more Crusaders or WLL. I am running 4 x Mirran Crusader and feel the matchup really close if they don't see Punishing Fire early. Same for 4C Loam which without PF I feel a bit favorable because they have a manabase that can be attacked easily by us. This last matchup depends a lot on the number of sideboard slots they dedicate to D&T as well because there are lists with between 2-4 sweepers and others with flex slots like Null Rod or Sulfur Elemental. They run a lot of meat because they feel the D&T matchup is not good and as a 4C Loam player I share this thought too. But as in other matchups like Lands or Storm, I think we don't depend on ourselves to win because of some high-impact hate cards.

[Arsenal]

I agree from my experience with Eldrazi that Warping Wail is a quite flexible tool. But what does your manabase look like to support it? 8 colorless sources clearly isn't enough to properly support Wail.

I'm usually at 9-10, depending on how I'm feeling that day.

1 Horizon Canopy
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Flagstones of Trokair (this slot is the 2nd Cavern if I decide to go with 1 sb Cataclysm instead of 2 that day)
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
9 Plains

[Esper3k]

Thanks for the info, guys! It jives with about what my thoughts were but I figured it's always best to ask the experts!

[caprino]

Yesterday I played another small event at my LGS winning it with 4-0. I am really happy with latest tournaments I've played (my overall record in the last 4 events is 15-2-2).

This time I won 2 Shardless BUG, BUG Control and Esper Stoneblade.

I changed a bit the way to go with my list, focusing games a bit less on the mana denial plan because of the change of the metagame caused by Eldrazi.

Right now I'm trying to focus the list in grindy matchups that are increasing in quantity, getting a bit worse Delver matchups (still being good matchups in general) and Infect, that is the matchup in which I see the change worse but if you know how to play the matchup you have a real chance.

Well, this is the most recent list I'm running:

MAINDECK:

4 x Mother of Runes
4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 x Stoneforge Mystic
4 x Phyrexian Revoker
2 x Serra Avenger
4 x Flickerwisp
2 x Mirran Crusader
2 x Mangara of Corondor

4 x Aether Vial
4 x Swords to Plowshares
1 x Batterskull
1 x Sword of Fire and Ice
1 x Umezawa's Jitte

4 x Wasteland
4 x Rishadan Port
7 x Plains
4 x Flagstones of Trokair
3 x Karakas
1 x Cavern of Souls

SIDEBOARD:

2 x Council's Judgment
2 x Cataclysm
2 x Pithing Needle
2 x Mirran Crusader
3 x Ethersworn Canonist
1 x Sword of War and Peace
3 x Rest in Peace

I left out the set of Vryn Wingmare to improve specially against Shardless BUG and Eldrazi (although I had a great record against Eldrazi even with Vryn Wingmare version) among others, having also a maindeck solution against new hate cards as Moat could be, but probably I'd return to 4 x Vryn Wingmare for a major event because there are a lot of Delver decks in those tournaments as they are super consistent. Other options could be Ratchet Bomb or Dismember as sideboard cards. I really like that we have different options for flex slots for lots of different situations and metagames and they change the playstyle a lot, letting you to improve with your deck and in general as a Legacy player.

Nice list.. Matchup Vs eldrazi is difficult?

[Koke_MTG]

Nice list.. Matchup Vs eldrazi is difficult?
It's not too much difficult. IMO is a 60%-40% in our favor. They have to draw really well in the first few turns in addition to their opening hand to don't let you stabilize the game putting an unstopable clock. Once you stabilize you only can lose through an animal topdeck like Endbringer, Reality Smasher or Umezawa's Jitte.

In our side Stoneforge and StP are really good of course, and Flickerwisp and Mirran Crusader are really helpful as well. These are the key cards for us. A T2 Stoneforge can be killed but you will have your Batterskull down winning the game for you if you get the long game we want. Flickerwisp could break Endless One or CotV allowing you to use your StP and in addition is a 3/1 body with flight. Mirran Crusader cannot be killed by the usual spot removal they run, only post-board if they run Spatial Contortion. Equiped with any equipment is probably game, kills TKS without a double chump-block and is really useful to have controlled creatures like Mimic, 2/2 Endless One, Revokers and Matter Reshaper until you stabilize the game. I think the mana denial plan is a bit worse here because they run a lot of lands, you should try it on the play with Vial only, otherwise save your Wasteland for the Eye or even a Mishra's Factory that can be a bit annoying. Don't worry about dead cards like Mother of Runes, they have theirs too with CotV (it's not too good specially on the draw) and Thorn of course.

I board as follows with my list:

-4 x Mother of Runes
-2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x SoFaI
+2 x Council's Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x SoWaP

I think the outs don't need explanation as Judgments and Crusaders. Pithing Needles are for wincons like Endbringer or Jitte and could be for Mishra's Factory too. I think is more important to close the opponent's Jitte than keep our Jitte open because it is not our main option but if they charge it, it could be game, and I think Revokers are not enough against a deck with 7+ spot removals post-board. Don't worry about CotV, opponent probably side out at least a couple of them depending on who starts. And finally I change the equipment because I feel that SoWaP is better to race a deck like Eldrazi giving us a difference of lifes that we need.

[caprino]

It's not too much difficult. IMO is a 60%-40% in our favor. They have to draw really well in the first few turns in addition to their opening hand to don't let you stabilize the game putting an unstopable clock. Once you stabilize you only can lose through an animal topdeck like Endbringer, Reality Smasher or Umezawa's Jitte.

In our side Stoneforge and StP are really good of course, and Flickerwisp and Mirran Crusader are really helpful as well. These are the key cards for us. A T2 Stoneforge can be killed but you will have your Batterskull down winning the game for you if you get the long game we want. Flickerwisp could break Endless One or CotV allowing you to use your StP and in addition is a 3/1 body with flight. Mirran Crusader cannot be killed by the usual spot removal they run, only post-board if they run Spatial Contortion. Equiped with any equipment is probably game, kills TKS without a double chump-block and is really useful to have controlled creatures like Mimic, 2/2 Endless One, Revokers and Matter Reshaper until you stabilize the game. I think the mana denial plan is a bit worse here because they run a lot of lands, you should try it on the play with Vial only, otherwise save your Wasteland for the Eye or even a Mishra's Factory that can be a bit annoying. Don't worry about dead cards like Mother of Runes, they have theirs too with CotV (it's not too good specially on the draw) and Thorn of course.

I board as follows with my list:

-4 x Mother of Runes
-2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x SoFaI
+2 x Council's Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x SoWaP

I think the outs don't need explanation as Judgments and Crusaders. Pithing Needles are for wincons like Endbringer or Jitte and could be for Mishra's Factory too. I think is more important to close the opponent's Jitte than keep our Jitte open because it is not our main option but if they charge it, it could be game, and I think Revokers are not enough against a deck with 7+ spot removals post-board. Don't worry about CotV, opponent probably side out at least a couple of them depending on who starts. And finally I change the equipment because I feel that SoWaP is better to race a deck like Eldrazi giving us a difference of lifes that we need.


I explain how to do the side and out side in against bugs, elves, rug, ant, mud, miracle, omnitell, sneak attack, infect etc ... against the tier that are found in the big tournaments.

so I write them for the next tournament I make ends meet, and I would like to take your lista.è the first time that this type of game deck

[iatee]

So I was goldfishing a mono-humans tribal build with Mentor of the Meek in it. In the context of the deck, the card felt extremely strong. Obviously that's the type of card that looks better when you're goldfishing, but I was considering testing it as a 1-of in Imperial SB for fair decks.

It's better in Imperial than it would be in Mono-W because it passes the crucial tests (2 power, human) and also actually rewards you for playing a build with almost nothing but 1/2 power creatures. The games also go longer than Mono-W games, for related reasons. It is a bit win-more and doesn't absolutely destroy anyone in particular. But as a pure value card for grindy/fair g2s, it seems like there's potential.

I might try something like this sideboard for a while:

1 Mentor of the Meek
1 Fireslinger
1 Containment Priest
1 Manic Vandal
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Standard Bearer
1 Devout Witness
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
1 Path to Exile

[Koke_MTG]

I explain how to do the side and out side in against bugs, elves, rug, ant, mud, miracle, omnitell, sneak attack, infect etc ... against the tier that are found in the big tournaments.

so I write them for the next tournament I make ends meet, and I would like to take your lista.è the first time that this type of game deck

Here you have some tips about how I board against some of the most common archetypes with this list. Questions or advices from anyone would be appreciated.


U/W/R Miracles

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-1 x Mirran Crusader
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 x Plains

Storm

+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-3 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Plains

Grixis Delver

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+2 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor

Shardless BUG

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-1 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 x Flagstones of Trokair

RG Lands

+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

4C AggroLoam

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

Sneak & Show

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

UG Infect

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-4 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Batterskull

Burn

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice
-1 x Karakas

Reanimator

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Stoneforge Mystic
-4 x Flickerwisp
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

Jund

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Flagstones of Trokair

RUG Delver

+1 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor

MUD

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Mother of Runes
-2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

Eldrazi Stompy

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Mother of Runes
-2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

Merfolks

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Mangara of Corondor

Death & Taxes

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

BUG Delver

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

Elves

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Batterskull

U/W/R Stoneblade

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

Deathblade

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Plains

[caprino]

Here you have some tips about how I board against some of the most common archetypes with this list. Questions or advices from anyone would be appreciated.


U/W/R Miracles

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-1 x Mirran Crusader
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 x Plains

Storm

+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-3 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Plains

Grixis Delver

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+2 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor

Shardless BUG

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-1 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 x Flagstones of Trokair

RG Lands

+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

4C AggroLoam

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

Sneak & Show

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

UG Infect

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-4 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Batterskull

Burn

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice
-1 x Karakas

Reanimator

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Stoneforge Mystic
-4 x Flickerwisp
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

Jund

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Flagstones of Trokair

RUG Delver

+1 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor

MUD

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Mother of Runes
-2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

Eldrazi Stompy

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Mother of Runes
-2 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

Merfolks

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Mangara of Corondor

Death & Taxes

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

BUG Delver

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

Elves

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Batterskull

U/W/R Stoneblade

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte

Deathblade

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Plains

Thanks, one question why 3 karakas main deck? 1 or 2 karakas main deck is not good?

[nevilshute]

Storm

+2 x Pithing Needle?
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-3 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Plains



Why bring in needle vs Storm?

[Quasim0ff]

Thanks, one question why 3 karakas main deck? 1 or 2 karakas main deck is not good?

No, 3 is good. Both 1 and 2 is too few.

*You want them for your own Thalia, Your own Mangaara. Opponents Griselbrands. You basically always want a karakas, and you don't really draw any cards, hence the three copies.

[caprino]

No, 3 is good. Both 1 and 2 is too few.

*You want them for your own Thalia, Your own Mangaara. Opponents Griselbrands. You basically always want a karakas, and you don't really draw any cards, hence the three copies.


for mangara and thalia what is Karakas?

[Echelon]

for mangara and thalia what is Karakas?

A form of hexproof, more or less.

In case of Mangara you first activate Mangara's ability, keep priority and then return him to your hand with Karakas before his ability resolves. This allows you to loop Mangara, removing one of your opponents' permanents on each of your turns.

Out of curiosity, do you use Google Translate to convert your posts to English? I honestly mean no offense by this, by the way.

[Koke_MTG]

Why bring in needle vs Storm?
Well, this is exclusively for their fetchlands, often Polluted Delta because they always play 4x of them. It's simply because I prefer more early disruption instead of really slow cards as Flickerwisp and Mangara could be. In addition, is a decent turn 1 if you don't have Mother or Vial, it's better than "land go". I've won some games by a Needle into Delta although it's hard to believe I know [emoji38] . This plan it's not too good but I think that it depends on the number of cards you want to board in and the number of cards you want to board out. I used to do the same against Omnitell in the DTT era (often with Flooded Strand as main target, but in G1 you can see how their fetchland configuration looks like) for same sideboard reasons.

[caprino]

A form of hexproof, more or less.

In case of Mangara you first activate Mangara's ability, keep priority and then return him to your hand with Karakas before his ability resolves. This allows you to loop Mangara, removing one of your opponents' permanents on each of your turns.

Out of curiosity, do you use Google Translate to convert your posts to English? I honestly mean no offense by this, by the way.

you use the translator, sorry if it is not always clear

[caprino]

Well, this is exclusively for their fetchlands, often Polluted Delta because they always play 4x of them. It's simply because I prefer more early disruption instead of really slow cards as Flickerwisp and Mangara could be. In addition, is a decent turn 1 if you don't have Mother or Vial, it's better than "land go". I've won some games by a Needle into Delta although it's hard to believe I know [emoji38] . This plan it's not too good but I think that it depends on the number of cards you want to board in and the number of cards you want to board out. I used to do the same against Omnitell in the DTT era (often with Flooded Strand as main target, but in G1 you can see how their fetchland configuration looks like) for same sideboard reasons.

what are the most decks hard to beat?

[Stevestamopz]

what are the most decks hard to beat?

Did anyone say Jund?

Because it's Jund.

[iatee]

U/W/R Miracles

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-1 x Mirran Crusader
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 x Plains


I keep some number of STPs vs Miracles these days but I also play a pretty different build. Given what you're trying to do, however, I think you shouldn't just not drop a Mirran Crusader, in fact you should bring in the other two. 4 Crusaders + two Swords to hook up to them is very powerful vs Miracles, gives you something close to a one creature / one hit kill, helps ensure you don't have to ever commit too much to the board.



Shardless BUG

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-1 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte
-1 x Flagstones of Trokair



For similar reasons, I think you keep the Jitte here. While not insane against Shardless, it is insane with Crusader and you're playing 4. You also can't be blown out by their removal if you're hooking it up to a Crusader - worst that can happen is they Decay the Jitte.




RG Lands

+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Pithing Needle
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-4 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte


Going to 0 STPs seems wrong against Lands, even if its an uphill battle if you ever have to use one. I have been keeping 2 in. I guess 2 Needle helps replicate the 'Keeps me alive past an early combo hand' effect. Still, when games go longer I don't mind having a STP sitting in my hand as an insurance policy.



4C AggroLoam

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice


Why do you like SoWaP more than SoFi here? I don't find these games to be a race as much of a question of who draws into their more powerful cards. So I think SoFI's card advantage is far more important.



UG Infect
+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-4 x Flickerwisp
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Batterskull


I think we've talked about this before, but I've started boarding almost counterintuitively vs Infect (taking out Thalias, some moms) and generally found it to be correct, as I've been taxed out of my own STPs too many times in the past. I think Council's Judgment is gonna be extra hard to resolve if you're playing Thalia. I also like keeping in Mangara - he's slow but does reliably kill Blighted Agent and they usually can't beat Mangara lock.



Burn
+2 x Council’s Judgment
+3 x Ethersworn Canonist
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice
-1 x Karakas


I would bring in the additional 2 Mirran Crusaders. Yeah they're boltable, but what isn't, and when they can't immediately kill it it can eat any of their creatures and race them.



Merfolks
+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Mangara of Corondor


I've also found Mangara-lock to be generally good vs Merfolk since they play so little interaction, maybe would take out only one and bring in one Needle? I don't know. You'd still have 5 Needle effects at that point, which should be enough since you don't even always want to Needle Vial or Jitte and Mutavault's generally answered by the rest of our deck.



BUG Delver
+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+3 x Rest in Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice


I think taking out all Thalias vs a Delver deck feels wrong, though I see the logic in this case and you are bringing in a lot of non-creature spells. I might take out 1 Thalia, 2 Flickerwisps and something else. Maybe only bring in one Council's Judgment now that it's often a 4 mana spell.



U/W/R Stoneblade

+2 x Council’s Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
------------------------------
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa’s Jitte


I think you want all your equipment here for all the reasons mentioned earlier. If you're playing 3-4 Crusaders, you're playing a fair deck with a somewhat unfair combo inside, and you want to maximize your chances at hitting that combo.

[Finn]

I have to imagine that Google Translate fails on MTG as bad as my phone's autocorrect, so I will be generic where possible.

(Echelon, how did you know, btw?)

Caprino, Elves is the hardest common matchup. You want side board stuff like:
Chalice of the Void (x=1)
Containment Priest
Grafdigger's Cage
Warping Wail

But also, these can help some and you should bring them in if you have them:

Ethersworn Canonist
Spirit of the Labyrinth
Aven Mindcensor
Ratchet Bomb
Pithing Needle

[Koke_MTG]

Thanks for your reply iatee, I really appreciate the feedback. I think it's fantastic to keep improving every day and of course I like some points of your opinion that I had not appreciated by myself yet.

I think our thoughts on how to board are different in the sense that I really want to minimize dead draws from a non-manipulation deck thinking on how the games against X archetype are more likely to develop based on my experience, and you prefer to have answers for all the situations, even if they are a bit remote, keeping in some slots that sometimes could be bad.

And is for this reason that we disagree in some points, especially in terms of leave or not StP in some matchups I see. Well, first of all, against Miracles the gameplan is clear. You want to win ASAP or at least spending the fewer resources better, because the more the game gets longer, the more we have lost IMHO, so I don't want to draw useless cards under CB/Top having already some answers for threats like Monastery Mentor or Izzet Staticaster. I want to keep my opponent playing fair with permanents.

Same against Lands. StP are bad virtually the entire game, so here I want preassure keeping Wastelands for key lands and Ports for keep them out of more than Loam each turn. When you exile Marit Lage with a StP you must know that you have lost unless you follow StP with a Cataclysm and even with this you will lose the game probably. Maybe we need another sideboard plan against the new version of Lands, keeping a couple of StP for Confidants mainly and the full set of Revokers for Molten Vortex.

Against Shardless BUG, 4 x Mirran Crusader are a really good reason to keep in Jitte but you often eat a Null Rod or lose a turn when you're trying to equip Jitte and he decays it to really haven't got too much impact in the field if you charge it. So I prefer to keep it in when I am going to play a pure-race matchup or one in which I need to keep controlled the table. I hate when I have to go back and I have a couple of useless equipments in play. And again, here I am looking for an after-mass removal play because after that, I want to draw more creatures and if you topdeck the Jitte and a couple of lands, you will be out.

Playing against 4C Loam I prefer SoWaP over SoFaI because you run over KotR with it and you can race your opponent better if you have him stucked through Wastelands/Ports, having his hand plenty of uncastable cards or if he is loaming each turn and has his hand plenty of lands.

Against Infect I would never cut Thalias. You surprised me a lot with this. I consider they're fundamental in our gameplan here and I'd run 8 of them without doubt. In reference to Mangara of Corondor I think you're right and I have to keep them over Council's Judgment, even assuming that they can protect Blighted Agent from Mangara of Corondor with a Vines of Vastwood and not from CJ, but Mangara is easier to cast. Probably a better option.

Facing Burn I think you're right again. Probably it's better to board out the full set of Revokers to bring the other 2 Crusaders?? Even being scared about Grim Lavamancer free wins...

Again I like your reasoning against Merfolks and it's better split between Mangaras and Needles, or probably 3 Revokers/2 Needles to keep under control Mutavault/Mishra's Factory and not assuming risks about a posible Dismember to Revoker?? although you can eat a CotV... it's not an easy choice.

I like to board out Thalias vs BUG Delver apart from the number of noncreature spells I'm bringing in, for the 3/4 sweepers they bring in. I feel the matchup similar to Shardless BUG matchup post board, changing Shardless Agent for Delver of Secrets, so I board similar to that. For this reason, I feel these games won't be fast games and Thalias won't be much relevant taxing the opponent.

Finally I don't like to run all the 4 equipments at the same time against anything. I feel it's a bit awkward, and is by this reason that I board out Jitte, that I think it is the worst here.

Again, thanks for the reply. Would be fantastic if you could help a bit with the remaining issues guys, telling us you opinion (Infect, Burn, Merfoks or other matchups you want to talk about for sure). I like to have a structure about how to board in events I play, even knowing the majority of sideboard plans from my testing I always bring with me my notes, and of course it's interesting to know other experienced players' point of view!

[Arsenal]

Did anyone say Jund?

Because it's Jund.

Hahaha, I agree. This matchup is dreadful. Thankfully, Jund isn't quite as prevalent as it once was.

[iatee]

Yeah I think I've always played slower builds of the deck and especially now as I've been fixed on how Imperial Taxes plays (vs Miracles and Lands it is good at going long but worse at winning quickly, so you're more scared of an early creature on their side, be it 20/20 or Mentor) And in the total opposite direction, I want to play a super fast prison game vs BUG Delver (cast Thalia, try to resolve a Magus of the Moon) but I can see taking out Thalia if you essentially want to beat BUG Delver in a very fair game, especially with their post-board removal.

I think vs Infect you should test dropping Thalias for a while at least. I think the big issue is that STP is our best card in the deck and it is incredibly difficult to hold up STP after Thalia is down. It's not that Thalia never wins, it's that it's a matchup where *our* non-creature spells are essential early + our Wastelands/Ports need to stay open too. They can win with very little mana and they play ramp. So if they cast Hierarch into Agent and we have a T2 Thalia, they still have 4 mana to work with on T3, which is more than enough.

I think while 4 equipment vs Stoneblade can be a bit awkward, a lot of it will be destroyed / turned off by both players along the course of the game, so having something live to fetch with your late game Stoneforge is strong.

I actually didn't think about getting past a KotR with SoWaP, couldn't think of a relevant white card in their deck cause I forgot he was white.

Vs. Burn maybe cut 2 Flickerwisp so you stay dense on 2 drops and still have a few hedges against Lavamancer? Against Burn especially it's pretty ugly to have to hardcast it and your Vials aren't always there or can get smashed.

[caprino]

Thanks for your reply iatee, I really appreciate the feedback. I think it's fantastic to keep improving every day and of course I like some points of your opinion that I had not appreciated by myself yet.

I think our thoughts on how to board are different in the sense that I really want to minimize dead draws from a non-manipulation deck thinking on how the games against X archetype are more likely to develop based on my experience, and you prefer to have answers for all the situations, even if they are a bit remote, keeping in some slots that sometimes could be bad.

And is for this reason that we disagree in some points, especially in terms of leave or not StP in some matchups I see. Well, first of all, against Miracles the gameplan is clear. You want to win ASAP or at least spending the fewer resources better, because the more the game gets longer, the more we have lost IMHO, so I don't want to draw useless cards under CB/Top having already some answers for threats like Monastery Mentor or Izzet Staticaster. I want to keep my opponent playing fair with permanents.

Same against Lands. StP are bad virtually the entire game, so here I want preassure keeping Wastelands for key lands and Ports for keep them out of more than Loam each turn. When you exile Marit Lage with a StP you must know that you have lost unless you follow StP with a Cataclysm and even with this you will lose the game probably. Maybe we need another sideboard plan against the new version of Lands, keeping a couple of StP for Confidants mainly and the full set of Revokers for Molten Vortex.

Against Shardless BUG, 4 x Mirran Crusader are a really good reason to keep in Jitte but you often eat a Null Rod or lose a turn when you're trying to equip Jitte and he decays it to really haven't got too much impact in the field if you charge it. So I prefer to keep it in when I am going to play a pure-race matchup or one in which I need to keep controlled the table. I hate when I have to go back and I have a couple of useless equipments in play. And again, here I am looking for an after-mass removal play because after that, I want to draw more creatures and if you topdeck the Jitte and a couple of lands, you will be out.

Playing against 4C Loam I prefer SoWaP over SoFaI because you run over KotR with it and you can race your opponent better if you have him stucked through Wastelands/Ports, having his hand plenty of uncastable cards or if he is loaming each turn and has his hand plenty of lands.

Against Infect I would never cut Thalias. You surprised me a lot with this. I consider they're fundamental in our gameplan here and I'd run 8 of them without doubt. In reference to Mangara of Corondor I think you're right and I have to keep them over Council's Judgment, even assuming that they can protect Blighted Agent from Mangara of Corondor with a Vines of Vastwood and not from CJ, but Mangara is easier to cast. Probably a better option.

Facing Burn I think you're right again. Probably it's better to board out the full set of Revokers to bring the other 2 Crusaders?? Even being scared about Grim Lavamancer free wins...

Again I like your reasoning against Merfolks and it's better split between Mangaras and Needles, or probably 3 Revokers/2 Needles to keep under control Mutavault/Mishra's Factory and not assuming risks about a posible Dismember to Revoker?? although you can eat a CotV... it's not an easy choice.

I like to board out Thalias vs BUG Delver apart from the number of noncreature spells I'm bringing in, for the 3/4 sweepers they bring in. I feel the matchup similar to Shardless BUG matchup post board, changing Shardless Agent for Delver of Secrets, so I board similar to that. For this reason, I feel these games won't be fast games and Thalias won't be much relevant taxing the opponent.

Finally I don't like to run all the 4 equipments at the same time against anything. I feel it's a bit awkward, and is by this reason that I board out Jitte, that I think it is the worst here.

Again, thanks for the reply. Would be fantastic if you could help a bit with the remaining issues guys, telling us you opinion (Infect, Burn, Merfoks or other matchups you want to talk about for sure). I like to have a structure about how to board in events I play, even knowing the majority of sideboard plans from my testing I always bring with me my notes, and of course it's interesting to know other experienced players' point of view!
Yesterday i play Vs maverick and esper mentor...side in and side out Vs this matchup? Thanks. Main deck list you play is fantastic

[Koke_MTG]

Against Maverick I think the sideboard plan depends on if you're facing a Dark, Punishing or a classic GW Maverick, for bring in more or less RiP for example (if any of them) or bring in SoWaP. First game against them I think that we have enough tools to win between flyers, 4 x Revokers main and more options to swing with an equipment. Post board we should be careful with cards like Zealous Persecution. It's hard to board this matchup because you want to bring in a lot of cards and you have no space. So against Dark Maverick (which is the most popular) I'd board similar to this:

+2 x Council's Judgment
+2 x Pithing Needle
+2 x Mirran Crusader
-4 x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-1 x Mangara of Corondor
-1 x Sword of Fire and Ice

As you can see, probably I'd opt for controlling better their tricks with more Needles over a more aggressive plan with SoWaP that could be sweet as well.

I have to leave now [emoji29] . Let me a couple of hours and then I'll post you how I'd board vs Esper Mentor

[Echelon]

(Echelon, how did you know, btw?)

The sentences in his post felt odd, as if they were translated word by word. The syntax just seemed off. It reminded me of a sketch a Dutch comedian once performed. Before the man became a comedian he worked as an English teacher at a highschool and during the sketch he shares some anecdotes concerning work he received from his students. One of the gems he shared with the audience was the sentence "Orphan up your guard". Apparently the student ment to say something along the lines of "be on your guard" but translated the sentence word by word, unable to recognise that the result he came up with wasn't quite what he ment. Some time ago there also was a commercial on Dutch television based on that premise. In that commercial a Dutch tourguide tries to explain various sights to the tourists he's guiding but does so while translating Dutch proverbs to English pretty much word for word (with some pretty horrible yet hilarious results).

Also, one of my wifes' former classmates once proclaimed she found something very cathedral. She ment stupid or dumb, which in Dutch is dom but Dom is also the name of a Dutch cathedral. Turns out people can be very cathedral too.

Long story short: his syntax was way off and that got me curious.

[Koke_MTG]

Against an Esper Mentor without Stoneforge Mystic package and without CounterTop lock (like this: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=18293&iddeck=138277) I'd board similar to this:

+2 x Council's Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
-4 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa's Jitte

I don't have tested the matchup enough and those lists are really variable. It's hard to deal with Cabal Therapy here as against Grixis Control decks, so maybe if they run DRS you have enough reason to board in a couple of RiP, closing Snapcaster Mage as well. Lingering Souls is a card that hurts us a lot too buying a lot of time for them, so if you face it probably you should bring in RiP definitely and maybe keep Jitte in, replacing SoFaI.

Deal with this kind of decks is harder than against Miracles for example IMO. They clean your hand and after that they start to play great cards against D&T, bomb after bomb. The problem is that they usually force you to cast more creatures if you want to race them, opposite than Miracles, and can clean you the board when they want with Toxic Deluge or Zealous Persecution as well. If your metagame is full of this kind of decks you should run a couple of Ratchet Bomb in your sideboard.

[caprino]

Against an Esper Mentor without Stoneforge Mystic package and without CounterTop lock (like this: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=18293&iddeck=138277) I'd board similar to this:

+2 x Council's Judgment
+2 x Cataclysm
+2 x Mirran Crusader
+1 x Sword of War and Peace
-4 x Phyrexian Revoker
-2 x Swords to Plowshares
-1 x Umezawa's Jitte

I don't have tested the matchup enough and those lists are really variable. It's hard to deal with Cabal Therapy here as against Grixis Control decks, so maybe if they run DRS you have enough reason to board in a couple of RiP, closing Snapcaster Mage as well. Lingering Souls is a card that hurts us a lot too buying a lot of time for them, so if you face it probably you should bring in RiP definitely and maybe keep Jitte in, replacing SoFaI.

Deal with this kind of decks is harder than against Miracles for example IMO. They clean your hand and after that they start to play great cards against D&T, bomb after bomb. The problem is that they usually force you to cast more creatures if you want to race them, opposite than Miracles, and can clean you the board when they want with Toxic Deluge or Zealous Persecution as well. If your metagame is full of this kind of decks you should run a couple of Ratchet Bomb in your sideboard.
Thanks, Vs dredge?

[Koke_MTG]

I don't have "the truth" about how to board. There are different ways to board depending on the plan you want to develop, the matchup... etc.

The best for you is to try configurations by yourself to improve and become a great player.

[Arsenal]

As someone who runs both D&T and Esper Mentor, I'd definitely keep in all Plows and the Jitte. If I'm on Mentor, it's very hard for me to deal with an active Jitte, and 1cmc instant removal that doesn't care about Mentor's p/t is gdlk.

[Koke_MTG]

I try to minimize dead draws and I think the rest of the maindeck options are better in this matchup so I opt for go ahead without the full set of our 1CMC spot removal. If they cast a Mentor and have the protection for your StP you'll probably lose really quickly, doing your StP a bit irrelevant and depriving you from a better draw here, so I prefer to not enter on this kind of game. It depends on your priorities I believe, but you make Mentor better if you give him so much value and at the same time I think you're doing your deck worse. Playing with Jitte is not an easy choice here, even more when you're running 4 equipments. There are situations in which all of them can shine so whatever you choose here is at least respectable.

I played again at my LGS as almost each friday. This time I won a 28 players event with a 5-0 record and the same list I posted a couple of pages before which is giving me great results lately. I really love D&T since I started to play it 2 years ago. You have no manipulation but playing well you can win against everything and with different gameplans. The experience is fantastic as well. I win a lot of games, especially grindy matchups, only by making less mistakes than my opponent.

R1 --> BUG Control (2-0). I knew he was on this and I kept a really good hand while his hand was really slow. I managed the G1 to win with Crusader + SoFaI. He tried to destroy the Sword with an AD but a Flickerwisp was in my hand to let me win the first game with Crusader equipped. G2 was really long. I ate a couple of Toxic Deluge, 3 AD, a couple of Lilianas, Disfigures and Needles... and he ate my 2 Cataclysm. Finally I won topdecking another Crusader. It was really hard post-board with tons of love.

R2 --> Elves (2-1). He was really unexperienced on Elves and played a bit bad over the match, forgetting some tricks and not bringing in Abrupt Decays. I won G2 and G3 with Crusader + Jitte.

R3 --> High Tide (2-1). I was not sure he was on High Tide and I kept a slow hand without disruption first game so I only could try win through a high clock without success. G2 and G3 I won especially with the help of Cataclysms, combined with Thalias, Canonists, Ports and Revokers.

R4 --> Sneak & Show (2-0). G1 was a hard lock with Karakas + Revoker to Sneak Attack. G2 he had a bit slow hand and I could play Vial + Needle + Revoker keeping Karakas in hand while I was Porting him. He hurted me a bit with a Blood Moon but could not find the pieces of the combo facing a clock with Thalia + Revoker + Crusader and Mother backup for a possible Pyroclasm.

R5 --> Junk Depths (2-0). I had played against this mate a lot of matches with different archetypes. G1 I kept a hand with 2 Wastelands and Vial, Mom, Avenger, Crusader, Plains. I prayed for a T1 without Shaman because I had tools to go for mana denial plan but I had no StP. I ate it followed by a Bitterblossom. He discarded my Crusader with a Therapy, what hurted me a lot because Crusader was my solution against a problemathic card as Bitterblossom was at this moment. Without him I spent some turns without a real clock. I was lucky drawing a StP later for a Dark Confidant. I drew a Mystic a few turns later when he was short on mana because of 3 Wastelands. I searched for Jitte and started to swing with him + Serra Avenger until he conceded. G2 he draw a lot of mana and I managed to play a little number of creatures playing around sweepers. He did not find enough answers because he was entertaining drawing more and more lands and I had Karakas down if he wanted to try the combo with the DD that he had, finding TS with a Crop Rotation or something.

[iatee]

I agree with Arsenal, and yeah I think it goes back to our difference in sideboard philosophies.

I look at that Esper Mentor decklist and I see about 4 cards I really 'care about' g1 (3 Mentor, 1 Toxic Deluge) and an additional 3 post-board (Zealous, Null Rod.) I want to have answers for those cards / play around them when possible, as they are ways we can just lose on the spot Everything else in that deck doesn't particularly scare me, the only other powerful thing the deck can do is a Probe/Therapy/Strix opening, but there's not that much you can do about that. (Sometimes I like using my SB to go down on 4-ofs vs Cabal Therapy decks, but I think that's pretty marginal.)

Mono-W D+T has no card selection but we're playing against someone who does - the % chance that the Esper Mentor deck will find one of those 3 Mentors is very high, especially in a post-board grindy game. So on a relatively even board, if we don't have a way to kill a Mentor within a turn or two, we just lose + they have a very high chance of hitting one of those Mentors - keeping 4 STPs is just a sacrifice you have to make to those statistics.

I am actually not sure I would bring in Cataclysm - it's only necessary if they already have a board filled with Mentor tokens, but even then it doesn't kill the Mentor itself (so often it will just buy you a few turns.) Unlike Miracles they're not really as dependent on having a large # of lands in play so the Armageddon side of the effect is only okay. Cataclysm also kills Jace but it has a lot of downside too as if there isn't a Mentor in play, we're going to have more creatures than they do. So, in short - I think it's better to have an answer for the Mentor immediately instead of after they've gone wild with it.

[Hyped]

[QUOTE=Koke_MTG;943841]...

...
R4 --> Sneak & Show (2-0). G1 was a hard lock with Karakas + Revoker to Sneak Attack. G2 he had a bit slow hand and I could play Vial + Needle + Revoker keeping Karakas in hand while I was Porting him. He hurted me a bit with a Blood Moon but could not find the pieces of the combo facing a clock with Thalia + Revoker + Crusader and Mother backup for a possible Pyroclasm.

...QUOTE]

I don't think MoM helps against pyroclasm because pyroclasm does not target?

[CptHaddock]

[QUOTE=Koke_MTG;943841]...

...
R4 --> Sneak & Show (2-0). G1 was a hard lock with Karakas + Revoker to Sneak Attack. G2 he had a bit slow hand and I could play Vial + Needle + Revoker keeping Karakas in hand while I was Porting him. He hurted me a bit with a Blood Moon but could not find the pieces of the combo facing a clock with Thalia + Revoker + Crusader and Mother backup for a possible Pyroclasm.

...QUOTE]

I don't think MoM helps against pyroclasm because pyroclasm does not target?

Mom is pretty fantastic against pyroclasm and other sweepers that deal damage. The commonly used acronym to explain protection is DEBT. Protection allows you to give protection from damage, equipping/enchanting, blocking and targeting. Since pyroclasm is just dealing 2 damage to each creature it falls under the damage category.

[iatee]

Protection prevents all damage from that color. Won't save you from black -x/-x effects or a white wrath, but Mom is gonna be good against basically any red deck because their removal is always damage based.

Edit: Cpt beat me to it.

[Koke_MTG]

I agree with Arsenal, and yeah I think it goes back to our difference in sideboard philosophies.

I look at that Esper Mentor decklist and I see about 4 cards I really 'care about' g1 (3 Mentor, 1 Toxic Deluge) and an additional 3 post-board (Zealous, Null Rod.) I want to have answers for those cards / play around them when possible, as they are ways we can just lose on the spot Everything else in that deck doesn't particularly scare me, the only other powerful thing the deck can do is a Probe/Therapy/Strix opening, but there's not that much you can do about that. (Sometimes I like using my SB to go down on 4-ofs vs Cabal Therapy decks, but I think that's pretty marginal.)

Mono-W D+T has no card selection but we're playing against someone who does - the % chance that the Esper Mentor deck will find one of those 3 Mentors is very high, especially in a post-board grindy game. So on a relatively even board, if we don't have a way to kill a Mentor within a turn or two, we just lose + they have a very high chance of hitting one of those Mentors - keeping 4 STPs is just a sacrifice you have to make to those statistics.

I am actually not sure I would bring in Cataclysm - it's only necessary if they already have a board filled with Mentor tokens, but even then it doesn't kill the Mentor itself (so often it will just buy you a few turns.) Unlike Miracles they're not really as dependent on having a large # of lands in play so the Armageddon side of the effect is only okay. Cataclysm also kills Jace but it has a lot of downside too as if there isn't a Mentor in play, we're going to have more creatures than they do. So, in short - I think it's better to have an answer for the Mentor immediately instead of after they've gone wild with it.

Yeah, maybe you're right, but I think a split between early answers for a Strix or a T3/T4 Mentor and our reset button as Cataclysm is, is an 'okey' way if you want to hold density of creatures post-board. Cataclysm provides you to grip the game when it gets ugly and the opponent assume a role similar to the Miracles player. I bring them in because I am not sure about the matchup, I see it a bit uncertain and I feel that I could need something like it as well. Other option could be to cut a Plains keeping in the 3rd StP, but as I said, there are many different versions of Esper Mentor decks so I think it depends on the build because if the version you're facing is based on CounterTop lock you should base your removal in other options than StP. The large number of versions and how each of them make our list change, and the little experience I have against Esper Mentor (no more than 8-10 rounds played against) do that I don't have very clear how to board against them.

[iatee]

Looks like c2232 had another good day at SCG with Imperial: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100735 - congrats! Hope we can get a tournament report.

Bold choices: 3 SfM, Bskull in the SB, 2 Revoker, 2 Karakas, only one Ethersworn in the SB.

Going down to 3 SfM has been something I have wanted to test - I actually played 3 SfM 2 Revoker the other day at a casual 3 round event this week when I was splashing green for Mayor. I was never punished for it, but it was a pretty casual affair and a small sample set.

I tried Bskull in the sideboard exactly once, got punished vs Merfolk immediately, and gave up on it. But I think it's definitely worth exploring further, since it's easily the worst card in the deck in your opening hand and vs quite a lot of the field. I think I'll try it again for a while at least. My biggest concern is actually that it makes things tougher vs burn g1, and I think this build is a little soft to burn - heavy on 3 drops, lots of non-basics for Price. Playing lots of copies of Vryn Wingmare helps though.

[c2232]

First of I will go over my bold choices
- 3 Stoneforge Mystic – I saw this idea here in the source and decided to try it out for about the past month, honestly I haven’t really regretted it. I only have two equipment in my main and I usually just need to search up one equipment…. If she dies, she dies.
- Batterskull in the Sideboard – I have been running this in the sideboard for over a year now and have literally never regretted it. It does make your burn matchup worse but burn is such a small part of the meta that it doesn’t matter to much. The reason I moved it to the side is because I rarely ever wanted to get it over sofi or jitte, when I did get skull my mystic would die and I would be stuck with it in my hand, if mom is out and active I can see wanting skull but im not sure it would be all that much better that sofi or jitte…… this idea has gone through a lot of discussion and testing throughout the past year but I am happy with it, though I don’t disagree with it in the main.
- 2 Karakas – yeah, I need all the basics I can get so I had to cut one so I could have 4 plains
- 1 Ethersworn – I figure its searchable, I do fluctuate with these but its usually one
- Surgical Extraction – This is an all star, I have been a huge fan of this for over a year….. loam and punishing fire really stick it to us and I don’t see consistently beating lands, aggro loam, or jund without it.
- Magus of the Moat – yeah, its cute but I doubt I will keep it.

Tourney report as best as I can remember.

Round 1 – Death and Taxes (Eric Craighead)
Game 1 – Vial into SFM for Jitte, I also landed a Magus with him having only one basic
Game 2 – I got the early Jitte but he curved out mom, SFM for Jitte, Brimaz, Wilt-leaf liege
Game 3 – I got vial into SFM for Jitte, and he got Mom, SFM for Batterskull…. He ended up getting batterskull equipped with Jitte and attacked, I vialed in Mirran Crusader and he gave the Skull pro-white connected and jitted my Crusader. At the end of his turn I Mysticed in SOFI untapped and equipped Jitte and SOFI to my SFM and vialed in Flickerwisp for his Skull, the equipped SFM connected and cleared his board.
He said he was relatively new to the deck but he played pretty well, I have played the mirror far to many times though

Round 2 – Maverickish? (Jason Collins)
Game 1 – This dude played Gitrog Monster against me!!!! No shit, actual Gitrog Monster, it drew him like 7 cards. I ended up mangaraing the gitrog and running away with Mirran crusader
Game 2 – He played thalia and I played consecutive Wingmares with a wasteland which kept him down. I ended up playing Magus of the Moat and beating down with the wingmares until he killed them at which point I ended the game by swordsing my Moat and swinging for lethal with Mirran
Gitrog Monster!!!! I think this could end up becoming a legit tier 2/1.5ish deck. The synergy with loam and reliquary knight and gitrog was pretty amazing

Round 3 – Grixis Delver (Jonathon Mihu)
Game 1 – He had an early delver and 3 bolts which killed mom SFM mom, I ended up getting SOFI equipped to something and ended the game quickly
Game 2 – he got and early 2x pyromancer versus my vial and mom, SFM and thalia, I kept vial on two and beat him down with SOFI thalia and bouncing thalia with karakas vial in thalia and reequip. This was a pretty grindy game
Vial on two, thalia, and karakas is so amazing in so many ways

Round 4 – Elves (Danny Jessup)
Game 1 – He drew poorly and I got the early jitte
Game 2 – he mulled to 5 and actually went off pretty hard with glimpse on turn 2, I sudden demised his board away turn 3
I have been playing D&T for 3 years and this is my first match win against elves, his poor draws and my nut draws are exactly what I needed and it was still close….. I hate elves!

Round 5 – Miracles (Alix Hatfield)
Game 1 – this game was all about 3 drops, he got counter balance out but no top, two blind terminus flips helped him but I consistently followed up with a 3 drop equipped with sofi
Game 2 – This was pretty grindy but I ended up countering a terminus and a last ditch entreat with warping wail
Im very proud of this match, Alix is a legend of legacy and very skilled with any deck he picks up. I get to play against him at my local shop and it is always intense.

Round 6 – Aggro Loam (Kory Ponting)
Game 1 – Punishing fire is a bitch
Game 2 – He got garruck and Arlinn Kord out, I revokered Kord and had a plan to kill the garruk with revoker equipped with sofi, unfortunately he fetch for dryad arbor and blocked……… I had a port in play….. I almost threw a chair…… sad face
Kory and I have play tested against each other quite often, it is really a 50/50 match between us. also Kory runs a legacy stream on twitch called Snapcasters, check it out.

Round 7 – Aggro Loam (Nick Ditizio)
Draw into top 8

Quarters – Aggro Loam (Kory Ponting)
Game 1 – Punishing Fire is seriously a bitch
Game 2 – Super grindy game with magus of the moon and extraction on his punishing fire  also I wastelanded his dryad arbor before he could block this time.
Game 3 – Vial, wasteland, wasteland, wasteland, magus of the moon…… it’s a combo!

Top 4
We split the tickets and scooped Bailey into 1st so he could have the points

Please hit me up with any questions, i always enjoy discussion concerning our baby.

[iatee]

Kory and I have play tested against each other quite often, it is really a 50/50 match between us. also Kory runs a legacy stream on twitch called Snapcasters, check it out.

Somebody should start a Source thread about this, you guys have been doing a great job!

Questions:

- How have you been boarding vs Miracles with your sideboard? D+T?

- I notice you don't have a Leonin Relic Warder or a similar disenchant effect. Did you ever feel like you wanted it as a tutor target? I know having a Mangara helps.

- Your creature curve is *really* high even for an Imperial Taxes list, 9 2 drops, 14 3 drops. What might not be apparent to people before they play with a curve like that - it has a lot of upside. You can tick Vial to 3 very quickly and you're cheating on a *lot* of mana throughout the game. You also mentioned Counterbalance and how 3s are pretty easy to sneak through. And with Caverns, you're less likely to be blown out by a Daze. Still, there can be downside too - have you ever felt like your hand gets clumped with 3 drops in a non-Vial game?

- Any other interesting Warping Wail plays outside of the Miracles game?

Other thoughts:

- I really like how wide open your creature base is - with the Sfm/Revoker/Bskull cuts you have room to play the full Thalia/Wingmare prison game and also play all of the flex creatures (Crusader, Fiend Hunter, Mangara.) Of those 3 cuts, I am most hesitant about the Revoker, because shutting off DRS is so key to both the Magus and the Thalia/Wingmare plans.

- Overall, I think we need to try these heretical things more often. Imperial Taxes is still a deck that hasn't been solved and a lot of the numbers that are probably optimal for Mono-W should be questioned. Having tutors in your deck means that you can skimp a little bit on some numbers in order to get a wider toolbox to work with.

[c2232]

Overall, I think we need to try these heretical things more often.

- vs Miracles I have been taking out Magus of the Moon and two sword for Pithing Needle, Warping Wail, Batterskull

- I have commonly been a huge fan of relic warder….. so much so that I have usually put him main deck. I did miss the little guy and will probably move him back to at least the sideboard

- I kinda liked the high curve, our two drop are really repetitive and can be a pain in the ass so I appreciated the fact that I could just go to 3

- I killed a grim lavamancer with but that’s about it

- I agree that 2x revoker may be a little short, it has so many uses that it should be a 3-of

- imperial taxes is far from refined, unfortunately I don’t get much time to playtest so I usually have to “test” it during tournaments. I read that source everyday and have gotten some really innovative ideas (3 SFM) and some really shitty ones (someone said they played 21 lands and never had a problem….. I tried cutting to 22 and was screwed all night long…… do not cut lands, 23 is perfect)

[iatee]

Haha I will take credit for that 3 SfM suggestion. I think 3 SfM, 2 Revoker or 2 Flickerwisp are all viable, I have done quite well with 2 Flickerwisps, though I think I'm going back to 3. (I mean why play D+T if you can't wreck people with Flickerwisp tricks?)

Relic-Warder has been consistently good for me to the point where he's usually an auto-include on the RiP/Ethersworn level. Just wish he were a human. He is also one of the few outs to Dread of Night, which this build is pretty soft to.

And yeah, if anything I would go to 24 lands before 22, especially with your curve.

[redtwister]

@c2232
Great job! Really like the build!

Questions:
What do you take out to get to a 3rd Phyrexian Revoker? The main looks really tight, the only thing I can really see is dropping a Vryn Wingmare, but it is one of those cards that is so much better at 3 than 2.

What would you change in the sideboard, aside from what seems like a clear choice of -1 Magus of the Moat, +1 Leonin Relic-Warder? How would, for example, get in another Ethersworn Canonist? Maybe -1 Sudden Demise or Cunning Sparkmage?

Aside from it being 1R, Haste, and Human, which are obviously all very good, has Cunning Sparkmage performed better for you than Goblin Sharpshooter, with its capacity to machine-gun x/1 creatures, which is most valuable against DnT, Elves, Goblins, and anything trying to drum out a bunch of tokens to kills us (though most of those are probably too fast for us to get to turn 4, i have seen them stumble on getting enough tokens out to kill us if they don't go off before we land Thalia/Canonist)?

Have you had issues with combo decks like Sneak and Show, Reanimator, and Dredge since you have dropped Containment Priest or are they just not present enough to worry you? Or does Warping Wail provide enough assistance in those matches? How are you boarding for them? EDIT: Oh yeah, against Dredge and Reanimator, you also have 2 Surgical Extraction... Is that helpful against any of the FTK decks, like Char Blecher or Oops, All Spells? Oops like to throw its wincon in the grave, but what about Char?

I have to say, with 2 Warping Wail, 3 Sudden Demise and Cunning Sparkmage, I would think Elves would be much better, even with only 1 Ethersworn Canonist.

Cheers!

[c2232]

@c2232
Great job! Really like the build!

Thank you.

For the 3rd revoker im thinking about wingmare, mirran crusader, or fiend hunter

cutting 1 sudden demise is possible, also im not really a huge fan of warping wail long term, I think its good now but I can see it not being worth the slot

I have not gotten a chance to try sharp shooter yet and I have only limited testing with sparkmage.

I have never played containment priest, I have never really liked it much. Most of the matchups you mention aren’t problems for us. Obviously with my list sneak and show and reanimator are a lot worse but they aren’t really that prevalent right now.

I have never ever played against belcher or oops, my theory against those matchups is that sometimes life sucks…. Its like 1% of the meta. The surgicals are primarily for loam and punishing fire but they are tits against the graveyard decks too.

[iatee]

My impression of Goblin Sharpshooter was that when it was wreck-the-board-good, it was generally win more. The biggest issue vs Elves and Infect is their speed, so sideboard cards that are good against them starting on t4 aren't gonna do it. However, I don't think the differences between the various pinger effects is that large overall.

[Violence]

Hello, all, I was also at SCG Baltimore, I piloted Imperial Taxes to a 4-3 finish at 33rd(daggers).

I wanted to share some of my experiences and input.

My list was somewhat more "traditional" than Travis's and I've been playing it for a while, I think there are a bunch of changes I would make at this point to it.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1253839

Round 1 vs Jeskai Stoneblade http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100767

Game 1: He showed me a ton of basics, I had mom and recruited for Stoneforge into Sword of Fire and Ice and took over the game.
Sided out Maguses, boarded into Pia and Kiran, but wasn't sure what the second slot should be. I boarded into Warping Wail, but I don't think that was correct. Maybe a random Fireslinger for Cliques/Snapcasters would've been ok, but it was kind of painful. I think some of my sideboard decisions were poor.
Game 2: I punted, racing TNN's with Sword, I locked myself under Thalia on accident and was not able to cast my 3 Swords to Plowshares sitting in my hand to get out of range of his exactsies lethal. I'm still kicking myself.
Game 3: He wiped my board with Kozilek's Return out of nowhere and I couldn't draw a 5th land to cast Batterskull to stay in it.

A painful round 1, but he played well and had a good finish.

Round 2 vs Infect

I have a lot of experience in this matchup as there are three pilots in my local meta, and I also own and play the deck from time to time.

Game 1: Invigorate, Berserk, kill you? Yes. Yes you do.
Sided out Batterskull, Revokers, Crusader, boarded in Magus, 2 Fireslingers, 2 Canonists
Game 2: Jitte + Mangara, holding up a Flickerwisp and Swords for his Stalker for the win. For people who haven't played this matchup a ton, always wait until they activate Inkmoth and then respond to the activation by Porting. If they have Vines and want to use it, they have to activate again in response and use the Vines, which taxes them a mana, often makes a big difference.
Game 3: Fireslinger + Magus of the Moon.

Round 3 vs Entreat Miracles

I double mulled to 6 and kept Vial dependent hands. He dealt with my turn 1 Vial in both games before I could get value off of them, in game 1 he used Council's Judgment and in game 2 he Pithing Needled it. Rough. I play Miracles again later on, so I'll go over the board plan later.

Round 4 vs Eldrazi Stompy

I've jammed this matchup with one of my friends to experiment with my own Eldrazi brew, and I personally like this matchup.

Game 1: I open with 3 lands, and he opens with Tomb into Chalice. I waste his Tomb, he plays another and passes. I draw Wasteland, and Waste his Tomb. He plays Temple, passes. I waste his Temple. He plays Temple. I waste his Temple. He plays Temple. Jeezus. He kept a 5 lander and drew two lander... so there goes my plan. Displacer ends up destroying me. Without a Swords to kill it, he amassed a mimic and Thought Knot to just lock me out. It's like a super Eldrazi mom.
I boarded out 4 mom, and boarded into 2 Fireslingers, a Magus of the Moon, and... again I was unsure of the last side in. It's around this point where I think there are some very real problems with the board. I end up bringing in a Warping Wail because I can't decide.
Game 2: Magus is really good. Shuts down his displacer and lands, I lock him out and go to town.
Game 3: He gets a bit stuck on lands, and I punish hard with a port into vialed Magus. I end up slowly dealing with his Mimics with Fireslinger and manage to get Jitte going. The game goes downhill for him and I manage to grab it. I am again disliking my choices in constructing my sideboard.

Round 5 vs Shardless

Game 1: Recruit Crusader, suit up Crusader with Jitte, crush.
I don't think I sided out anything, I wasn't sure what to take out for the third Magus and he showed me a basic Swamp so I wasn't sure how good the third Magus would be. In hindsight, I should've boarded into two Rest in Peace and the Magus, but I'm still not sure what I cut.
Game 2: A long, grindy match, I stick a Magus and am dealing with Goyf town, but eventually he manages to Toxic Deluge out with his basic Swamp and then Golgari Charms away my attempt to stabilize.
Game 3: We went to time, with clear boards and top deck wars. On turn 5 he brainstorms and we reveal hands and I scoop to him because he was a nice guy and I honestly believe he would've won with his upcoming draws.

Round 6 vs Deathblade

There's a testing group around the MD/VA area made up of Paul Lynch and a couple of other Legacy players who love this Deathblade list.

I know it runs no basics, and is BWUG. It's Magus time.

Game 1: I don't draw a third land for like 6 turns and die to an unending stream of removal. He's seen Cavern, Port, and White cards.
I side out a Swords to Plowshares for a Magus of the Moon.
Game 2: I have a vial, he goes for Stoneforge on turn 3 while I'm porting him, and fetches Batterskull. This lets me slam Magus. I beat his Batterskull while getting Crusader with my own Batterskull.
Game 3: He Stoneforges on turn 2... and gets Batterskull again. I don't understand his line of thinking, since Jitte is a way better choice against us and is totally castable under Magus and if I don't remove the Stoneforge, it's game over. I play a Plateau and slam Magus on my turn 3 and spend the rest of the game dealing with Batterskull before killing him with Crusader with Batterskull.

Some sketchy choices from my opponent, I'm not sure if I could've won those games otherwise.

Round 7 vs Predict Miracles

Game 1: I died to Terminus into Entreat.
Sided out 1 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Magus of the Moon, brought in Pia and Kiran Nalaar, 2 Warping Wail.
Game 2: He got brainstorm locked and I recruited Stoneforge, it was too much.
Game 3: I opened with 3 Vials, and just prayed he didn't have Pithing Needle. I ticked them up to 4 and 3 and 3, and eventually Recruited for Pia and Kiran, and went to town with two Flickerwisps in hand. His Clique was pretty embarrassed, Terminus did nothing as I just Flickerwisped Recruiter, and eot tutored Pia and slammed it again, and he dug for another swords before I slammed Flickerwisp again to prompt a concession.



My local meta is Infect, Elves, Reanimator, Belcher, Storm, Delver, a bit of the mirror, a bit of Miracles, and whatever this boss (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100730) feels like playing.

I didn't play very much of that, and I probably should've changed my board to be more flexible.

Thoughts:

Maindeck:

I need more Plains. I think I'll shave to 5 fetches to run the 3rd plains. I want to get the fourth somehow, but I don't want to cut Karakas with both Mangara and Pia. Not quite sure what to do, I'll have to think on it. Maybe shave another fetch?
Shaving a Stoneforge and a Batterskull seems pretty good actually. I thought about it a lot all weekend and we rarely fetch it first. I think it would be rough vs Eldrazi Stompy, but that's the only matchup I can think of where I absolutely need Jitte. It's often stranded in our hands, too. I've been wanting to try Wingmare and I'll probably make this change.

Sideboard:

I guess 3 Canonist is really too much. The last big event I played in, I had to play storm several times, but I think the meta here in Baltimore is very different from that of the Bay Area, and I should've really reflected that. I would probably only play a single Canonist now.

Warping Wail hasn't really been that amazing for me, it's been great to have against the Entreats and Terminuses every now and then, but it's often hard to hold up because we usually use our colorless for Port and Wasteland, so I've found it quite hard to support. Necessary evil? Not sure.

I guess Sneak and Show is not seeing much play, so these Containment Priests are just for Elves. I guess my sideboard devotes a lot of slots to Elves because of how awful the matchup is.




For Travis, how good is Fiend Hunter? It seems like a strange choice to me. If you think Magus of the Moat is too cute, I've been really enjoying Pia and Kiran lately, I basically board it in against any grindy matchup where my opponent is not running Wasteland, and it's been quite a house. You recommend Surgical over RIP? Do you also bring it in against like, Snapcaster Mage, or just like, exclusively the Dredge, Loam, Reanimator type deal?

[saberoca]

There's a testing group around the MD/VA area made up of Paul Lynch and a couple of other Legacy players who love this Deathblade list.

My local meta is Infect, Elves, Reanimator, Belcher, Storm, Delver, a bit of the mirror, a bit of Miracles, and whatever this boss (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100730) feels like playing.


I play with a small legacy group in the DC area. Do you play near DC? PM me if you want to get our groups together sometime.

[Violence]

I play with a small legacy group in the DC area. Do you play near DC? PM me if you want to get our groups together sometime.

It'd be about an hour. I primarily play at Dugout Zone in Ellicott City and Amazing Spiral in Baltimore. If you'd like to attend our monthly events, I can let you know about them

[c2232]

For Travis, how good is Fiend Hunter? It seems like a strange choice to me. If you think Magus of the Moat is too cute, I've been really enjoying Pia and Kiran lately, I basically board it in against any grindy matchup where my opponent is not running Wasteland, and it's been quite a house. You recommend Surgical over RIP? Do you also bring it in against like, Snapcaster Mage, or just like, exclusively the Dredge, Loam, Reanimator type deal?

I have enjoyed Fiend Hunter, the access to a tutorable removal spell has been pretty solid.
I run both RiP and Surgical. I run RiP against decks like shardless that have both Goyf and Deathrite or RUG Delver to shut off Goyf and Mongoose. Surgical comes in with RiP against heavy graveyard decks like Dredge or Reanimator and against Loam/Punishing Fire Decks like Lands or Aggro Loam. I have honestly loved Extraction, i could not recommend it enough.

[iatee]

Congrats Violence, it's a shame we were so close to getting 2 Imperial lists in the top 32.

I was skeptical of Fiend Hunter for a while, but after playing with one myself for a while it's been reliably good for me.

As for your SB, I think running multiple copies of cards like Containment Priest and Fireslinger is not necessary with 3 Recruiters, especially as they are SB cards that only come in for a small subset of matches.

I think your last side in vs Eldrazi should have been Pia and Kiran. Some games you might get Wasted out and it's stuck in your hand, but other games it can actually stabilize on its own vs a huge board.

Vs Shardless, and any other grindy black deck, your first thought should be to side out some x/1s - because they are sure to have at least some sort of Golgari Charm effect. Also, even Shardless decks that play a basic or two are very taxed vs Magus because their deck requires so many colored sources (Hymn, Jace, Baleful Strix) - playing around Magus seriously impacts their gameplan and sometimes they just can't afford to go basic Swamp into basic Forest. If post-board you have 3 Magus + Crusader + 3 Recruiters + 2 RIP you have a ridiculous number of cards that just wreck them.

A single Canonist seems really risky to me, it paid off for c2232 and can be a meta choice, but Canonist is one of the best cards against *most* of our rough matchups (Infect, Elves, Storm) and you generally want it ASAP. I mean if my local meta was "Infect, Elves, Reanimator, Belcher, Storm..." I think I would be playing one in the main.

[Violence]

I have enjoyed Fiend Hunter, the access to a tutorable removal spell has been pretty solid.
I run both RiP and Surgical. I run RiP against decks like shardless that have both Goyf and Deathrite or RUG Delver to shut off Goyf and Mongoose. Surgical comes in with RiP against heavy graveyard decks like Dredge or Reanimator and against Loam/Punishing Fire Decks like Lands or Aggro Loam. I have honestly loved Extraction, i could not recommend it enough.


Congrats Violence, it's a shame we were so close to getting 2 Imperial lists in the top 32.

I was skeptical of Fiend Hunter for a while, but after playing with one myself for a while it's been reliably good for me.

As for your SB, I think running multiple copies of cards like Containment Priest and Fireslinger is not necessary with 3 Recruiters, especially as they are SB cards that only come in for a small subset of matches.

I think your last side in vs Eldrazi should have been Pia and Kiran. Some games you might get Wasted out and it's stuck in your hand, but other games it can actually stabilize on its own vs a huge board.

Vs Shardless, and any other grindy black deck, your first thought should be to side out some x/1s - because they are sure to have at least some sort of Golgari Charm effect. Also, even Shardless decks that play a basic or two are very taxed vs Magus because their deck requires so many colored sources (Hymn, Jace, Baleful Strix) - playing around Magus seriously impacts their gameplan and sometimes they just can't afford to go basic Swamp into basic Forest. If post-board you have 3 Magus + Crusader + 3 Recruiters + 2 RIP you have a ridiculous number of cards that just wreck them.

A single Canonist seems really risky to me, it paid off for c2232 and can be a meta choice, but Canonist is one of the best cards against *most* of our rough matchups (Infect, Elves, Storm) and you generally want it ASAP. I mean if my local meta was "Infect, Elves, Reanimator, Belcher, Storm..." I think I would be playing one in the main.

Thanks for the input, guys, that makes a lot of sense.

[Curby]

7-1-2 across two days at GP ABQ. Seems like white still has legs.

Friday:
BUG Delver 2-0
4C Delver 2-0
Infect 2-1
Enchantress 1-1-1
Punishing Jund 2-1

Saturday:
Sneak and Show 2-0
Zombardment 1-2
Reanimator 2-1
Punishing Lands 1-1
RUG Lands 2-0

[Koke_MTG]

This week I've kept winning the friday Legacy event at my LGS with the list that is giving me great results lately. I've won 3 of the last 4 events there with it.

This time I didn't have a great variety of matchups:

BUG Food Chain (2-1)
Death & Taxes (2-0)
BUG Delver (2-0)
Shardless BUG (2-0)
Wg Death & Taxes (2-0)

The hardest matchup was Food Chain because I had very little experience against that and it's a bit hard matchup because we have a short number of cards to break their combo (Revokers and Canonists) and they have -X/-X sweepers as the rest of BGx decks to keep us where they want. Other thing is that we haven't good answers against a T2 Manipulate Fate and then 3 Misthollow Griffin attacking because our removal only provides us to gain a turn so they can kill us easily without the combo way. So my best threat against them is an early race with Crusaders through DRS and Baleful Strixes as always.

Opposite to this, I didn't have the same luck yesterday at a GPT for GP Prague and I finished with a mediocre result:

Junk Depths (1-0)
UWR Miracles (0-2)
Goblin Stompy (2-1)
BUG Delver (1-1)
Junk Depths (0-2)

[Adan]

After a 4-0-1 last month (BUG Delver 2-0, Eldrazi 2-0, 4C Aggro Loam 2-1, Eldrazi 2-1 and Eldrazi I.D.), I went 0-2 drop yesterday. I switched to Modern and fortunately made 4-0-1 there to rescue the weekend for me.

I lost against Aggroloam, the same guy I beat the month before, but this time he packed Dark Dephts and went insane lucky (everytime he didn't dredge Loam, he topdecked something insane such as Liliana, Punishing Fire, Decay), while at the same time playing in a way that lets me win if I either topdeck Wasteland, Rishadan Port and Flickerwisp. I mean, that gives me 12 outs, which I should eventually draw even in a deck without cantrips. But I didn't. There might be one point where I might have made a misplay, it involved unattaching SoFaI from Batterskull-germ and equipping a Mirran Crusader with SoFaI in an attempt to protect him from topdeck PunFire. However, the result was that my Germ-Token got double-PunFire'd by a topdeck Punishing Fire and I still couldn't get around that stupid Maze. It was a blurry situation, but other than that I'm sure I played it as optimal as possible, and certainly would have won with either of the above mentioned card.

However, the match afterwards I got annihilated by some BURG shitpile with maindeck Lavamancer, Jitte and True-Name Nemesis (no Delvers). It was unfortunate, but g2 he opened with 1st Turn Dread of Night to which I topdecked Mother, Thalia, Thalia while he had TNN again. I went for Stoneforge Mystic into SoFaI because I already had Batterskull and then got double Thoughtseize'd.

I was wondering, is there a non-clunky card beside Council's Judgment that can be boarded against decks that might bring Dread of Night?

[Luca Grease]

I was wondering, is there a non-clunky card beside Council's Judgment that can be boarded against decks that might bring Dread of Night?

Leonin Relic Warder, although it's very vulnerable to removal. Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing will always be solid sb cards if your meta warrants their inclusion.

[Arsenal]

+1/+1 effects usually see sb play for primarily this situation; Dread of Night, Night of Souls' Betrayal, Golgari Charm, etc. Veteran Armorer, Wilt-Leaf Liege (if they're on black for Dread of Night, they likely are also on discard like Liliana, Hymn, etc) and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are commonly played sb cards that also have marginal utility vs non-Dread of Night decks. For example, you'd board in Gideon vs something like Miracles.

[iatee]

I think there's a big difference between the 'big' Dread of Night responses (Wilt-Leaf, Gideon) and the 'small' Dread of Night responses (Relic-Warder, Disenchant, Ratchet Bomb, Veteran Armorer). Wilt-Leaf, Gideon, Council's Judgment aren't going to do anything to help you against fast combo (ANT, Reanimator), which is approximately 50% of the time you'll see the card. OTOH Relic-Warder / Veteran Armor are not great against the midrange Dread of Night decks, since they'll just die to some other removal.

Truthfully, the card is just very good against DnT and thankfully it's too narrow for most people to play. I personally think the 'big' responses are too narrow to be worth SB spots for us, and whenever I try playing one I drop it after realizing I'm only bringing it in for something like 10% of matches. Relic-Warder might not beat a midrange deck, but it has value in tons of non-Dread of Night matchups so its overall value as a SB slot is a lot higher.

I like having SB plans that make you less dependent on x/1s rather than SB plans built around protecting them. Lately I have been playing a ton of Mirran Crusaders in the SB and swapping them with x/1s g2/3. This allows you both the power of regular T2 Thalia, T3 Wingmare wins g1 + the ability to play a good grindy sideboard game. Maxing out on Mirran Crusaders and playing a lot of Rest in Peaces (and Ethersworn Canonists for Storm) is a good way to be better against Dread of Night / Golgari Charm decks while not necessarily beating the card itself. If you can ensure yourself at least 2 very good games against their deck, it's fine to lose one to Dread of Night. And it's possible to do that without playing too many 'targeted' SB cards.

[PortOnUpkeep]

Hey all! I finished 17th (6-2-0) at the SCG Columbus legacy classic last weekend, and I thought I'd write a tournament report.

My list was:
10 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Mishra's Factory

4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Mother of Runes
4 Flickerwisp
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Serra Avenger
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth

Sideboard:
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Rest in Peace
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Council's Judgment
2 Warping Wail
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Cataclysm
1 Containment Priest
1 Pithing Needle
1 Path to Exile
1 Spellskite


R1: 2-1 vs Reset Tide

G1: I'm able to curve a Mom into a Spirit and finish him off before he can find a way to remove SotL. I don't see which variant he is on, as I only see him cast a high tide and fizzle.
G2: He goes off before I can get any relevant hate pieces. On top of this, I brought in a needle thinking he was playing candles, but alas, my revoker and needle on candelabra are not enough to stop the combo.
G3: He misses on lands and Thalia is able to slow him down enough for me to swing lethal.

R2: 0-2 vs Sneak and Show

These games were uninteresting, as I mulled to 5 and 4 before getting annihilator 6'd before being able to do anything.

R3: 2-0 vs Death and Taxes

G1: My opponent and I had met at a previous event , so we both groan as we learn we're in for the mirror. He lands a T2 jitte, but I'm able to plow all of his potential weapon carriers before I'm able to Mangara the jitte. Eventually, connect with my own to close out this one.
G2: I have a slow hand and he's able to get 2 SFM's to grab a sword of light and shadow as well as a jitte. Luckily, I'm able to use a pithing needle on the sword and Flickerwisps out my vial to flicker jitte wielders. I finish out the game with a wisp carrying a sword of fire and ice and a jitte.

R4: 0-2 vs TES

G1: I'm up against Caleb Scherer (really awesome guy, by the way) I keep a hand with double Thalia, but he's able to get a probe into a therapy for Thalia. I die to tendrils shortly after.
G2: I keep a hand with double Canonist and a spirit, but with only one land. I was probably too greedy here, and I'm only able to draw land after there are 14 goblin tokens on the table.

R5: 2-1 vs Shardless BUG

G1: I get a T1 mom into a T2 SFM. My spirit makes his two visions look fairly unhelpful, and I grind out the game with batterskull and a Jitte from a second SFM.
G2: I get my board wrathed by a deluge, before untapping and playing thalia. He proceeds to play E-Plague on human, and my hand full of x/1 humans looks really sad against a Garruk Relentless.
G3: The game becomes slow after I spend my turns trying to blank a jitte by hitting its carriers with removal. Eventually, I'm able to resolve a mystic and a giant sword carrying germ takes the game.

R6: 2-0 vs Miracles (creatureless)
G1: I establish 2 vials and a sword before he entreats for 3 out of pressure from ports. I flicker two of them and proceed to win with a crusader carrying the sword.
G2: He gets stuck on lands and I'm able to waste him off of white and red. Once again, my sword carrying creatures carry me to victory.

R7: 2-0 vs Shardless Bug
G1: Double mom helps me swing my batterskull through a wall of Goyfs, and I eventually speed up the clock with my sword.
G2: He mulls into a slow hand, and I get a stoneforge online. He tries to resolve a visions to find an answer, but I have the Warping Wail to counter it.

R8: 2-0 vs Eldrazi
G1: I keep double wisp, crusader, double plains, vial, and a plow on the draw (not certain that was correct, but it got there). I flicker his attackers and plow a Seer before drawing a third wisp for the 9/9 endless one. After revoking his displacer, I'm able to swing lethal.
G2: He plays an endless one for two, and I waste the tomb. He gets in for four before I'm able to get two vials on board and path his endless one, as he hasn't stuck any other creatures. He proceeds to needle vial and remove my two creatures with wails. I then play a stoneforge, but the jitte she finds gets exiled to a thought knot. After plowing the TKS, I spend the next ~8 turns swinging with mystic and porting him off of his only three lands. Eventually, I find a judgment for the needle and vial in more threats while continuing to deny him mana.

Overall, I thought I played pretty well, and I think this mainboard configuration is my favorite as of right now. I'll probably keep playing around with the SB, but it was fairly well put together for this meta (with the exception of the spellskite).

Anyway, thanks to everyone for continually contributing to this thread and helping newer D&T players like myself.

Good Luck and Happy Taxing

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I figure someone has already tested it but I'm wondering how people feel about running Eldrazi Displacer. It seems like 8 colorless sources would be decent for the activation and you could sure get some value out of it. Also, 3/3 non-white creature has utility for DoN. Anyone looked into this?

[iatee]

Some people have had moderate success with it: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/402457#online

It is obviously nightmare to deal with if left unchecked in a grindy fair matchups and if you local meta has a lot of those then it should be a good card. I would hate to face it in the mirror, you pretty much would need a STP or Revoker immediately or you're gonna just lose.

But a 3 mana 3/3 with the potential for upside is still quite slow for legacy. It doesn't pressure their mana or have evasion (Wingmare/Flickerwisp) or dodge any deck's removal (Crusader/Brimaz). So it's pretty unreliable as a beater and doesn't have any immediate disruption attached.

For Mono-W (and maybe even Imperial) I think it makes a lot of sense as a SB option to bring in to wreck fair matches rather than trying to squeeze it in the main, which is how people have been testing it. e.g. in the list I posted there, he's playing a Brimaz in the board and Displacer main. I think switching those two would have made more sense. He's playing two Caverns, and any list that is playing it should be playing at minimum one.

[zebhillard]

Lost out in the top 8 of the GPT this weekend with mono-white D&T. It did me well, but Elves was just able to get off to too much of a start. He was able to get to Progenetis before I could find a Counsel's Judgment, which makes things unwinnable. A few interesting things of note:

Lost to Losset-style Miracles in the swiss, bringing my record against it with the deck to something like 1 - 118437857393. For some reason I can never end up getting the advantage in the match.

Beat burn twice, once in a very close three games; the other was a complete blowout where he dropped Pyrostatic Pillar but I actually outraced him in damage with a SoFaI equipped Serra Avenger.

Vial > Mom + Canonist > SfM + Mirran Crusader > Jitte on Crusader + Containment Priest in response to GSZ > Cataclysm was one of my favorite four turns of the weekend.

Beat Eldrazi in three games. Mom is worthless, but Gideon from the SB making a blocker every turn to buy time worked out well.

Didn't bring in any of the RiP from the board at all through the day, but everything else in the 15 got some time in the main. Sea Gate Wreckage drew me roughly 10 cards over the span of the games I played, but I'm still on the fence between it and another value land.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Is Eiganjo Castle viable in the 3rd Karakas slot? I'm anxious to get to play this, and I'm all of a Karakas, 2 Ports, 2 Avenger and 2 Mangara away from finished. The reason I ask is that I'm much further from playing this if I must wait on the third Karakas. Also, in testing I've had occasional issues with the Legendary status with 3 Karakas.

[iatee]

Castle just isn't a good card, there's not that much small creature combat in legacy (and Thalia has first strike anyway) and it saves your legends from 0% of the commonly played removal spells. You really have to work to come up with situations where the card matters.

You probably can afford to toss Castle in regardless since the downside is very low and you can generally afford to only play 2 Karakas without significantly lowering your win %, it's just not optimal. If you are just playing games locally it's really not something to worry too much about. You probably shouldn't play any Mangara if you are only playing 2 Karakas however.

And yes, you will hit the multiple Karakas hands over time, but the upside of having 3 copies of a plains that can just autowin you the game vs a lot of decks is pretty huge.

[Curby]

Is Eiganjo Castle viable in the 3rd Karakas slot? I'm anxious to get to play this, and I'm all of a Karakas, 2 Ports, 2 Avenger and 2 Mangara away from finished. The reason I ask is that I'm much further from playing this if I must wait on the third Karakas. Also, in testing I've had occasional issues with the Legendary status with 3 Karakas.

It's really not as good. Karakas is used to also disrupt Reanimator and other cheaty decks, and Castle won't protect a Thalia or Mangara from a Bolt. Anyway, I'd suggest sleeving up what you have and starting to get time in. I'm about to do the same with Chaos Elves despite being 2 Cradles short. Just my 2c. :cool:

P.S. Mangara isn't necessarily a staple anywhere in the 75 anymore, but most (monowhite) decks run 3 Karakas, 4 Port, and 3-4 Avenger.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'm using Mangara to be cute with Eldrazi Displacer. Thanks for the input. I'll be here more frequently soon.

[c2232]

I'm about to do the same with Chaos Elves

Get out!

[Curby]

Eldrazi Displacer ... I'll be here more frequently soon.

I was really looking forward to Displacer being awesome, but it didn't end up doing enough for the pretty high associated mana requirements. I'd love to hear if you end up making it work out.


Get out!

I'm also looking for a 3-color Brainstorm deck but haven't really found much that speaks to me. :tongue:

[iatee]

I've tried a Naya build with 3 Mayor of Avabrucks at two local store events lately, went 2-0-1 and 3-1, beating 12 Post, Infect, Merfolk, BUG Delver and Red Sneak/Breech splitting with some Miracles brew and losing to Reanimator (Hit his one of Massacre g3.)

The lists have looked something like this:

4 Thalia
4 Mom
3 Sfm
3 Flickerwisp
3 Mayor
3 Recruiter
1 Magus
1 Fiend Hunter
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Revoker
1 Vryn Wingmare

4 Vial
4 STP
1 SoFi
1 Jitte

3 Cavern
5 Fetch
1 Plateau/1 Savannah
2 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Karakas

Two separate games I was able to spike wins with bad hands purely off Mayor into Mayor (12 Post and Fish). If your opponent has a slow start and they both flip + you have 2 tokens, that's 16 power on board for a 4 mana investment, which is pretty absurd. This mana for this build still feels a bit fragile and I'm not going to take it to a competitive event, but there's definitely a deck in here somewhere.

[Finn]

Ten years ago, I was aching for competitive Legacy. I could talk about it online, but as far as I knew there was nothing in the state of Florida at all. I was so desperate once that I actually fronted the prize - a Grim Tutor (which I lost in the finals) just to try to drum up interest. But life happens, and I don't get out much for tournaments anymore, even though there is a good one weekly, 3 minutes from my door organized by David Winsauer and the excellent Southfloridamagic crew. And lemme tell you - it KILLS me to drive past it all-the-time!

But this Sunday the stars aligned and I made it with my friend, Travis.

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
4 Flickerwisp
2 Mangara of Corondor
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Warping Wail

4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Horizon Canopy
9 Plains

SB
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Council's Judgment
2 Cataclysm


This is not even close to a tuned list for either this environment or, probably any environment. Here goes:

----------Rd 1: John with Shardless
g1: I confessed to John that I was feeling rusty before we even finished shuffling. He was pleasant enough, and he opens with Underground Sea ->Ancestral Vision, betraying his entire deck's contents. Recollection tells me this is a good matchup, so I happily start in on him. Waste his land, pass. He plops down a fetchy and passes. Me: Plains, go. He Brainstorms and I am holding the singleton Spirit of the Lab. I see him draw those cards and it feels like I'm being robbed of the whole tournament here in round 1 game 1 simply because I lost the die roll. I got it down just in time to catch Vision, but he had the Decay to handle it on his upkeep. Drat! No matter, he simply could not draw enough lands and I ground him down while he held a fistful of cards.
g2: This was a fun game for me with Karakas into Thalia, followed by Revoker (on Deathrite Shaman - he had two eventually), followed by Mangara with the means to recur him. Shardless is slow, so while he got stuff going, it was just too little to matter in the face of this and the fact that he scooped with just one land left. John correctly pointed out that my three creatures made it virtually impossible for him to ever resolve another spell. Yep, now I remember tournaments.
1-0

----------Rd 2: Brandon with Dredge

see video coverage at 29:00
https://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/62575490

g1: On my turn 2, I knew I was facing Dredge. He had a Lion's Eye Diamond on the battlefield. I had to decide whether to go Revoker on it in hopes that he either would not see what I could do, or that the timing would be bad for him. He had told me that he plays often at a different store (coolstuff games), and he played his turn 1 quickly and efficiently. Given this, I thought he was likely to sac the LED in response, probably ending me. So I figured that the Revoker gamble was a bad one, and I went with Jitte.
g2: Brandon was clearly not happy with how interactive game 1 had been. I don't think he had ever experienced anything like that with Dredge. My seven included Containment Priest and three lands, so I kept. Cage would have been a perfect turn 1 play, but there is just the one copy. Anyway, he manages six 2/2 zombies on his turn 2 while I have...Plains. He Therapies me and names Swords to Plowshares in the same breath. You can see my hands up, asking him to wait for a response. He was cool about it, but I had topdecked Enlightened Tutor on my turn 1, so I used it to fetch RIP, which really should not have been enough to save me.

Things very much broke my way this entire match. Brandon had a fine line of play in both of the games, and Jitte is just about the only card that can win g1. And I had to have either Mom or Vial turn 1 to get it going offensively on turn 3. Then I was able to dodge his Therapies because I topdecked the tutor in g2. Because of Cabal Therpay, simply having Containment Priest in hand was not enough (I don't know why he did not take it from me, btw - his Bridges were all gone so the Priest would have prevented him from getting any more creatures). Finally, the topdecked Flickwerwisp was pretty much the best card I could have drawn. Brandon was gracious, but confounded how the games went the way they did. This was starting to feel just like old times.
2-0

----------Rd 3: James with Infect

g1: Another classy person who knew his deck well. James went first with Inkmoth Nexus. I think I Wastelanded it. I think I Wastelanded his second land also after a Brainstorm. He never really recovered from that and I tempo'd my way to victory. Infect is a crappy matchup for me. I think this is true for all D+T players, but I'm not sure. For me though, I just don't feel like I have the right tools.
g2: James effectively slow rolls me. My StP was kinda meh, and he did me in with an inkmoth, Agent, and the usual tools. One of the things that hurts so bad about this matchup is just how good Hierarch is. I had her revoked and she still kicked my butt.
g3: Finally I get to go first. Plains, Vial -> go. This time James had the speed draw, but I got Thalia out on turn 2 and that made all the difference. I kept attacking with her because that deck almost never blocks. Again I had Hierarch revoked, but I went first and had a clock. He saved his inkmoth at his eot with Vines of Vastwood, which he had been saving (along with 2 mana to cast it through Thalia), and I was concerned. But Thalia made him need too much mana to kill me with the inkmoth on his next turn and he scooped to lethal on the table. Phew!
3-0

----------Rd 4: Danny with Omni

ID
3-0-1

----------Rd 5: Josh with Esper

ID
3-0-2

----------Top 8: Paul with Jund

see video coverage at 4:19:18
https://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/62575490

g1: I did not initially know what Paul was on, but he revealed that this was his first top 8. This knowledge impacted a lot of my decisions including a questionable attack with Brimaz. What a slog. That deck is full of bad stuff for D+T, and he started game 1 with Deathrite Shaman into Punishing Fire on my Revoker to make that clear. I got him down to like 7 life or something, and the game went on so long that I forgot that I had even hit him when I boneheadedly attacked Lilly instead of his dome for the win. I remembered a moment too late. Rusty. What was tough was the fact that I had revoked the not-yet-present Liliana the turn before (not the Deathrite Shaman, as the commentators assumed), and he killed the Revoker just before he untapped and got Liliana blind off the Bloodbraid Elf.
g2: This one went pretty long too, and I probably would have been fine if he did not topdeck three removal spells in a row. Also, in hindsight, I could have killed the Tarmo if I had triple blocked it with Mom still out there. Whatever, that is what it is like to face Jund.
g3: I got RIP. He did not get Abrupt Decay. That set him back enough to ride in easily in atypical fashion for D+T.
4-0-2

Top 4 split. Fine with me. I was paired with Danny (Omni) again, and I did not care to face yet another bad matchup. What a hostile environment this had been. Anyway, fun times. I hope nobody copies my 75. The Warping Wail was annoyingly stuck in my hand the one time I drew it, and my sb was an affair of "what do I have handy?" rather than an actual design.


On a side note: Travis had a KILLER new combo deck that we worked out the broad strokes to the night before. Skill Borrower, Phyrexian Devourer, Altar of Dementia. You can make your Skill Borrower big enough to mill the opponent completely (or just use Triskelion a la the ooze deck) by just activating it a bunch of times while it has the Devourer ability. With these on the stack, you get to choose whether to use the top card before devouring it. Just keep going until you get to the kill card. Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor make this extremely consistent. The only problem: Devourer has unnecessary errata making the removal of the top card a cost and not an effect. We realized it after round two, so he did not have a fun tournament. Otherwise, I would be writing about that today instead of D+T.

[Curby]

Congrats on the finish, and thanks for the report!

I know you said the list was unoptimized, but why did you bank on Brimaz main instead of Crusader, Avenger, or other staple beaters? I imagine that you must have those, and using Brimaz was an intentional decision.



He Therapies me and names Swords to Plowshares in the same breath. You can see my hands up, asking him to wait for a response. He was cool about it, but I had topdecked Enlightened Tutor on my turn 1, so I used it to fetch RIP, which really should not have been enough to save me.


I'm starting to like the Tutor plan more. I was at GP Seattle facing Dredge with 3 RIPs and no Tutors in the board. Sided in the RIPs for G2, kept an opener on the draw with RIP, first turn Therapy naming RIP takes it. Having RIP is no guarantee of success, but making them guess between RIP and Tutor is at least another game you make them play.



I had her revoked and she still kicked my butt.


Yeah, it's not the mana ability that kills you. :frown:

[Stevestamopz]

With GP Sydney (side event's only) and Eternal Masters (Australia's only Eternal weekend) coming up, I've been doing a lot of online testing on Cockatrice (because dat price of Ports on Modo :eek:) and I've been having the best results with Mono White taxes. As much as I like R/W, I've been overall rather displeased with the overall low attacking power level of the deck. Pia and Kiran have been great, but they haven't completely solved the decks problems unfortunately. The Eldrazi matchup can sometimes be a cakewalk if you go Vial into Stoneforge into Moon, dodge TKS, but overall it's been playing out rather badly for me with taxcake (4-7). Mono-white however has been shining against Eldrazi, with my record being 11-3 against Eldrazi.

With that said, I'm looking to go back to mono-white with the following list which has been doing well for me online.

4 Æther Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Flickerwisp
2 Mangara of Corondor
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
3 Serra Avenger
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Karakas
8 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

SB: 2 Cataclysm
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 3 Warping Wail

The disk is mainly for Eldrazi, but I could also see it being decent against other midrangey creature-control decks like Maverick and Stone/Deathblade.

Just after some thoughts from you guys on the admittedly, very stock list.
Also, is Cavern #2 better than Sea Gate #1?

Cheers.

[c2232]

But this Sunday the stars aligned and I made it with my friend, Travis.

Would your friend happen to be Travis Thomas?

[Finn]

Would your friend happen to be Travis Thomas?
The same.

Kirby, I have never understood why the Tutor sideboard fell out of favor. I don't see a strong argument against it, and it gives you more virtual copies of a variety of hate cards. Also, Brimaz was simply in the deck because I had been playing casual. Brimaz is fun in casual.

[c2232]

The same.

Awesome, tell him Travis Cowley said hi. He helped me with my game alot in my early years back at C&M cards in Morgan Hill California.... That dude is a beast and I miss the shit out of him!!

[redtwister]

Kirby, I have never understood why the Tutor sideboard fell out of favor. I don't see a strong argument against it, and it gives you more virtual copies of a variety of hate cards. Also, Brimaz was simply in the deck because I had been playing casual. Brimaz is fun in casual.

I'm guessing because Abrupt Decay has pushed people towards more copies of the hate card itself, though I rarely experience finding the 2nd copy when I need it, compared to the much better chance of finding the first one with the ET board.

Congrats on the event, too.

[iatee]

There are a lot of obvious weaknesses with Enlightened Tutor - it's pure card disadvantage in a deck that has to fight very hard for card advantage. It means you're casting a sequence of (usually) non-creature spells in a Thalia/Port deck. If they have an answer (counterspell or removal) for what you tutored for, it's an enormous tempo blowout. If you're trying to use it to spike your anti-Eldrazi card, it's also another 1 drop that gets eaten by Chalice. Despite all that, it's a powerful card selection effect in a deck with absolutely zero card selection outside of SfM. I think if you build your SB around it, you *really* need to build your SB around it since tutors get more and more powerful with each additional target you throw in. e.g. I think Steve's sample SB a few posts up doesn't have enough targets. (P.S. Disk is a terrible card since it's slow and you're the one with treasured non-creature permanents...you should try Ensnaring Bridge or Moat if you want a tutorable game-over card vs Eldrazi.)

Tutor is very good in metas where card advantage isn't as important and you just need answers ASAP (combo, aggro) it's kinda meh in attrition-y / fairer metas. I think Mono-W is best off with either a Tutor package or a SB that contains tons of copies of only a handful of cards (RIP, Canonist, and a few other things).

e.g. here's Koke_MTG's sb from a few pages ago that I think is a good version of that - everything is either a multiple or fetchable by Sfm:

2 x Council's Judgment
2 x Cataclysm
2 x Pithing Needle
2 x Mirran Crusader
3 x Ethersworn Canonist
1 x Sword of War and Peace
3 x Rest in Peace

So those are the only ways to lower your variance when it comes to hitting the right cards - play pure tutors (I obviously prefer another one...) or just double down on doing a certain thing. The worst SBs are the ones that look like they have E Tutor packages but they don't actually have E Tutors. At that point you're just hoping god smiles down upon your draws.

[Curby]

That's a very similar sideboard to one the folks on MTGSalvation have had success with:

3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Rest in Peace
2 Containment Priest
2 Council's Judgment
2 Fiend Hunter (flex)
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sword of War and Peace

The differences are Containment Priest and Fiend Hunter instead of Cataclysm and Crusader, but their builds run 3 Crusaders maindeck. Other options for the flex creature slots are Brimaz, Mangara, and Wilt-Leaf Liege.

There are other folks that play a bunch of somewhat-overlapping 1-ofs and 2-ofs. It seems that more advanced players tend to play fewer full playsets: Vials and Thalias are always in full 4s for example, but often people will splash in singles or pairs of cards like Spirit of the Labyrinth, Sea Gate Wreckage, and Mangara main, and cards like Grafdigger's Cage, Seal of Cleansing, and CoP: Red side. I never know if it's more cute than effective, but I've been leaning towards playing more copies and fewer card names.

[redtwister]

Let's think about the most common targets for Enlightened Tutor:
Rest in Peace
Ethersworn Canonist
Pithing Needle
Chalice of the Void
Seal of Cleansing
Grafdigger's Cage
Absolute Law (could also be CoP:Red)
Ratchet Bomb
Ensnaring Bridge
Relic of Progenitus
Oblivion Ring
Spirit of the Labyrinth

The first two are in EVERY DnT deck, regardless of colors. You need them when you need them, but they often need to go in ASAP, though sometimes you don't want RiP until turn 3 or 4.

Needle is in many decks, usually as a 1-of, sometimes as a 2-of. When it is best depends on what you have to name.

Chalice is mostly in decks trying to beat combo and Infect, but it is a rare tool. It is also best on turn 1 (xx=0 or turn 2 xx=1).

Cage comes in ASAP, but has frequently been replaced by an extra RiP and Containment Priest, removing a target for ET.

Absolute Law/CoP:Red, RoP, Bridge, and R-Bomb are meta calls.

O-Ring has essentially been replaced with Council's Judgment, removing another ET target from the deck.

SotL is rarely played and even more rarely played and even more rarely in the side.

Negative Evaluations:
- There are only two regular targets for ET: Canonist and RiP.
- Two targets for ET are essentially permanently gone: Cage and O-Ring.
- SotL is rarely in the side and rarely worth targeting.
- Four targets are, at best, situational meta calls: AL, CoP:R, RoP, Bridge and R-Bomb.
- All the targets are soft to Abrupt Decay, except Seal, so going with 3 instead of 1 or 2 can help you find the card more than once.
- ET is card disadvantage, strictly speaking and you have to build your side to really use it. (see iatee's comments above)
- ET gives your opponent some knowledge, technically.


Positive Evaluations:
- The only guaranteed ET targets are Canonist and RiP, which many people run up to 6 of. Now, that by itself might make ET worth it, since 2/2/2 really means you have an effective 4-of for RiP and Canonist until you fetch one.
- ET means you can afford to run meta-dependent cards as 1-ofs with more certainty of finding them, so it is better in decks that want to run 1-of enchantments/artifacts.
- The items searched for with ET tend to come in in clumps, like Canonist + Cage + Needle vs. Elves or Canonist + RiP vs. Storm or RiP + Cage + Chalice vs. Reanimator. That means with 2 ET, 1 Cage, 1 Needle, and 2 Canonist against Elves, you really have 3/3/4 respectively as far as drawing your first hand and a greater chance to find effectively two of them in your opening hand.
- Using ET for Revoker is overlooked value.
- ET can get Jitte when you can't find SfM or didn't draw it against Elves, and you already have Canonist and something else (there are literally never too many good cards to get ASAP against Elves.)
- ET is never called by Cabal Therapy blind.

Honestly, if you run a sideboard with 3/3 RiP/Canonist and 1+ Pithing Needle, I think ET is worth it. If you really want to go back to Cage, it is especially worthwhile.

If you are running light on targets though (generally speaking, less than 6), I agree with iatee that it is just not a good idea.

[iatee]

- ET can get Jitte when you can't find SfM or didn't draw it against Elves, and you already have Canonist and something else (there are literally never too many good cards to get ASAP against Elves.)

Yeah one thing I've noticed multiple people do in DnT mirrors is forget bring in their E tutors since they are too busy thinking about 'the package'. E tutor is as good in the mirror as it is against Elves or Infect, since just like Elves and Infect, you're just racing to Jitte and card advantage doesn't matter. G2 you've (hopefully) and they've (likely) also dropped Thalias/Wingmares so it's easier to hardcast tutor, hardcast Jitte.

Another good tutor target if you want to troll the burn player in your meta - Aegis of Honor. It's more fun than COP: Red because you get to experience them reading the card text.

[Curby]

I'm guessing because Abrupt Decay has pushed people towards more copies of the hate card itself, though I rarely experience finding the 2nd copy when I need it, compared to the much better chance of finding the first one with the ET board.



Taking RiP as an example, wouldn't a 2 Tutor + 2 RiP package be better than 3 RiPs? You're more likely to draw any 2 out of the 4-card package during the course of a given game than 2 out of 3 real RiPs.

[Colin]

Taking RiP as an example, wouldn't a 2 Tutor + 2 RiP package be better than 3 RiPs? You're more likely to draw any 2 out of the 4-card package during the course of a given game than 2 out of 3 real RiPs.

Sequencing this is more often 2 turns of mana often through a thalia effect vs. 1 turn of casting hate + 1 turn of porting/casting creatures. That's the argument I have always used for this.

[Koke_MTG]

I don't like Enlightened Tutor for the reasons given by iatee. I don't like to lose the tempo of the game searching for something that I am not going to play at least until my next turn, being something that cannot be definitive because can be countered/destroyed and that can make me lose about two turns. It can also avoid me to tap with Rishadan Port or something like that, departing me from the main gameplan.

It is also more difficult when you want to board with this kind of configuration full of singletons and it sucks when you draw them out of time. It could be good in a very open event in which you don't know what you're going to face, but in those situations particularly I still preferring a compact list with which you have very clear your sideboard strategies and what you want to draw on each moment even without solutions for specific matchups that are harder to face.

So I think as other compact decks like Delver, it's better to assume that you won't have solutions for some unfair situations that can be given in the Legacy format, and it's even harder to find solutions for everyting when you're piloting a deck without manipulation, so my advice is to focus the sideboard for the decks you want to win as main targets, for example in a metagame full of small creatures decks (D&T, Elves, Infect, Delver...) I'd run Gut Shot/Dismember/Warping Wail/2nd copy of Umezawa's Jitte or things like that, in a metagame full of BGx decks the full set of Mirran Crusader and even 1/2 WLL, in metagames full of combo I/d run a couple of Containment Priest in addition to Canonists and maybe 1/2 copies of Mindbreak Trap if needed... Of course I probably wouldn't remove Council's Judgment from the sideboard because it's great vs a lot of established/tier decks as Pithing Needle is, and this is what I value for this kind of decks that are really close and don't have manipulation, the versatility, thing that CoP, Absolute Law, Meekstone, Grafdigger's Cage don't have.

If you see my board I focus it trying to win especially Shardless BUG, BUG Delver, UWR Miracles/Stoneblade and Lands, knowing that I need less slots and less specific cards for other T1 matchups that I consider already good like Grixis Delver or Eldrazi (Sadly, I don't face those T1 decks too much over Madrid these days, otherwise I'd change a bit the board if needed).

[Finn]

Guys, don't worry about counterspells or even any kind of defense in the form of Abrupt Decay or whatever. Tutor targets are super high impact. Most of the cards in your deck are rather low impact in the matchups where you are bringing in the tutors. Having one fewer of those cards is not important compared with the advantage of having greater access to your tutor board. I am figuring that you can all handle the simple math for virtual copies here. With the exception of RIP, all of the tutorable targets are specifically for fast combo decks, anyway. Combo decks are not going to have counterspells. You tutor on turn 1 to land your hate card on turn 2. The game rarely gets beyond that so the card disadvantage is a total nonfactor. The part about Thalia hurting you is also not going to happen - for the same reason. The game does not last that long if you are dead.

My sb is not perfect, but it works with E-Tutors - a wide variety of singleton answers for specific opponents.

[iatee]

I'm not sure anyone disagrees with that, but it does highlight what I was saying before - that the Tutor package is better vs combo metas but less good in fair metas. Right now combo is in the worst place it's been for a long time due to Eldrazi - if you look here it's down to 23% of the meta and has been on a downward trend: http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE

So I think were you to go to a major tournament (or are playing on MTGO) it's probably not the right time to be building a sb based around beating fast combo. However, most people play most of their games in smaller metas that might be infested with the scourge of fast combo. Or you might just want to reliably hit that one of targeted sb card for that guy you dislike.

[Stevestamopz]

I am currently in combo hell, so the e.tutor package has been very good for me in that regard.

There's been some really good discussion though on this page, really nice to see :)

[redtwister]

iatee, This brings up a really good set of questions.


1. What are the decks we are most likely to face at larger tournaments?

2. How does our deck fare against them? Poor (Elves), Fair (Storm), Even (Miracles), Good (RUG Delver), Great (?)

According to MTGTop8, the top decks in the last two weeks (Eldrazi has caused quite a bit of shifting, so 2 months isn't reliable yet, IMO):

22% Miracles (Even, extremely player skill/experience dependent)
08% Eldrazi (Good)
07% BUG (they are a mess at distinguishing BUG Delver from Shardless from Control) (Good)
07% Storm (Fair)
06% Show and Tell (Good)
05% Elves (Poor)
05% Burn (Good?)
05% DnT (Even, extremely player skill/experience dependent)
03% Grixis Delver (Even)
03% 4c Delver (Good)
02% Stoneblade (Fair), UR Delver (Good), Lands (Even), Loam (Even), Painter (even), Reanimator (Good), Dragon Stompy (No Idea), Maverick (Good), Zoo (no Idea)

That's still 22% combo and most of the random combo decks are, IMO, fair to poor for us, so I tend to board for those matches.

Control is 35%, but that is over 50% Miracles. As always, IMO, that should include us, which would make it 40%.

If we take Delver out of aggro and put it in Tempo/Aggro Control, it is still around 10% of the meta.

Aggro, at 19%, is the real winner with Eldrazi and burn, but growth in Dragon Stompy, Maverick, and Zoo.

All those decks make up 89% of the meta.

Of everything out there, I am most worried about the combo decks in that list, as far as where I want to stack my sideboard choices, versus decks I am already strong against in the main.

What are other people's thoughts?

[iatee]

I think 2 weeks is too small a sample set, those numbers seemed a bit off, especially with Lands and Infect not on the list. Here's last 2 months, with everything +3%

UW Miracles 11%
BUG Aggro / Midrange 8%
Grixis Delver 7%
Eldrazi Aggro 7%
Burn 5%
Death & Taxes 5%
Show and Tell 5%
Infect 4%
Elves 4%
Lands 3%
Stoneblade 3%
Storm 3%
Reanimator 3%
Painter 3%

This pretty accurately reflects what I'd expect to see at live tournaments right now. That's only 71%, but as you go longer in a tournament it's going to make up an increasingly large share as t2 fun decks tend to slowly float out of the tournament.

I tend to adjust my sideboard based on not 'what I want to beat/not lose to' but rather how often I find myself actually using a card. I think we can all agree that Rest in Peace and Ethersworn Canonist are the two best cards for the DnT sideboard, both are powerful enough that there is no way anyone should ever build a sideboard without copies of each. Not only are they super powerful effects, but, more importantly, they come in for a wide variety of matchups. If you play a long tournament and never use one of those cards, you've had a strange set of matchups.

If you build a sideboard dedicated to turning your 35% matchups (Elves, Infect etc.) into 50% matchups - but over time you end up playing your 50% (Miracles, Grixis Delver etc.) matchups 5x as often and have constantly worse g2/g3s against them because you had little to bring in, ultimately you're giving up the %s you gained vs the 35% matchups and then some. This is why I've stopped playing Sudden Demise even though it completely shores up the Elves matchup. I don't think spending 4 spots to shore up your worst matchup is a good use of resources when it's only 4% of the meta. If it were 11% of the meta, it almost certainly would be worth it.

I have been having a lot of success with Path to Exile lately in my board, it has been so reliably good that it's entering RiP/Ethersworn territory for me. It *significantly* improves one of your worst matchups (Infect) while still coming in against lots of other stuff. I would be bring it in for 10/14 of those above decks (BUG Delver, Grixis Delver, Eldrazi, Burn, DnT, Infect, Elves, Lands, Reanimator, Painter.) The drawback of ramping them is far more theoretical than real in my experience, Elves is the only place you really feel it. A good percentage of the field just doesn't play basics, or fetches them immediately (especially g2 vs Imperial) so it just ends up being a strictly better StP.

I know people love Council's Judgment, which also a great card for the same reason - broad application. But against most of those above decks having a 1 mana instant speed removal spell whenever you need it is more powerful than having a 3 mana removal spell that can deal with more stuff. Going up to 6 copies of an instant speed 1 mana removal spell feels almost like cheating when you're playing a creature tempo matchup like Delver or the mirror.

[redtwister]

I tend to adjust my sideboard based on not 'what I want to beat/not lose to' but rather how often I find myself actually using a card.

If you build a sideboard dedicated to turning your 35% matchups (Elves, Infect etc.) into 50% matchups - but over time you end up playing your 50% (Miracles, Grixis Delver etc.) matchups 5x as often and have constantly worse g2/g3s against them because you had little to bring in, ultimately you're giving up the %s you gained vs the 35% matchups and then some. This is why I've stopped playing Sudden Demise even though it completely shores up the Elves matchup. I don't think spending 4 spots to shore up your worst matchup is a good use of resources when it's only 4% of the meta. If it were 11% of the meta, it almost certainly would be worth it.

I don't disagree with asking "how often do I use the card", so much as I think we have to take both into consideration. For example, if I am facing 4c, BUG and RUG Delver frequently, I am certainly asking "what do I really need to do to beat them/not lose?" Well, against BUG and RUG, RiP is huge and I already run that because it is good against so many decks, as you say. What really adds value to those matches, besides RiP, that I want to take other cards out for? If I run other cards to take that match from 60% to 80%, whereas RiP alone takes me to 75%, what is their marginal value?

In other words, there are diminishing returns at the top as well as at the bottom. However, there are certain cards that improve multiple match-ups incrementally and a few match-ups a lot. I tend to opt for those.

For example, Sudden Demise is great against Elves, but it is also good against Delver, especially Grixis with Pyromancer and UR Delver. It is playable against Shardless BUG. It's also fine against Infect because you can sweep some Hierarchs and infect creatures (post-board, they often like to go wide, to make our spot removal less efficient) or force them to use up pump spells. It's good against fringe decks like Goblins, decent against Merfolk, etc. I like it in the mirror if we get behind. It's even okay against Dredge to sweep tokens if they got a little out of hand before you RiP'd them. Is it optimal against any one of those? Not really, but maybe it brings marginal advantage against a lot of decks and a major boost against one of our worst matches.

On the other hand, Chalice of the Void is really good against a lot of decks. It also plays very well with the E-Tutor approach, since a virtual 3-of is much better than a virtual 1-of and it is solid against Burn, Infect, Elves, Storm, Belcher, Grixis and UR Delver, Reanimator, and more. Now we are talking about a sideboard card with value against 20% of the decks in the format, but I only need to run 1 because I run the E-Tutor 2/2/2 core package.

I tend to like cards that give me incremental advantage in my even-good matches, but that really buttress my poor-fair matches significantly so they become even-good.

[Klirre]

I haven't followed the evolution of DnT the last year, been playing TES. Just found my way back and have a couple of questions regarding sideboards:

A lot of you seem to like Council's Judgment, but I prefer playing Disenchant to deal with annoying artifacts and enchantments. Sure, it can't kill jace or lilly, but is there any other upside that makes it worth the extra mana?
What happened to Flagstones of Trokair? I play the full set, always liked it. Is there any reason not to except the occasional Blood Moon? I think the synergy with Catyaclysm and the protection vs. Massacre motivates playing 4.

The list I play right now looks like this:
land (23):
4 waste, 4 port, 4 flagstones
3 karakas
1 canopy
7 plains

noncreature (11):
4 stp, 4 vial
3 equipment (SoFaI, jitte, skull)

guys (26):
4 mom, 4 thalia, 4 flickerwisp, 4 revoker, 4 sfm
2 serra avenger, 2 horse-thalia, 2 crusader

board (vs. ~50% combo)
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 RiP
2 Canonist
2 Cataclysm
2 Containment Priest
2 Disenchant
1 Pithing Needle
1 Path to Exile

Final questions:
Is Warping Wail worth buying at all? It does not seem to fit the "port you every turn" philosophy very well.
And how's the eldrazi stompy matchup? I got utterly crushed by chalices and thorns while playing storm, still haven't played it with DnT.

I'm sorry that I'm too lazy to read everything that's been written the last year, I have read the last pages though and gotten a lot of info from the sideboard discussions :)

[Curby]

Was it Brad Nelson that said, "If it weren't for sideboarding, we content producers would be out of our jobs"? Neat discussion. I've been using the monowhite board I posted last page, but I might try some Tutors at the GPLA side events.


A lot of you seem to like Council's Judgment, but I prefer playing Disenchant to deal with annoying artifacts and enchantments. Sure, it can't kill jace or lilly, but is there any other upside that makes it worth the extra mana?

True-Name, Progenitus, usually easier to kill a Counterbalance with a 3 than a 2, even hits "regular" creatures in a pinch. Some people play a Seal of Cleansing rather than Disenchant if they're on the Tutor plan.


What happened to Flagstones of Trokair? I play the full set, always liked it. Is there any reason not to except the occasional Blood Moon? I think the synergy with Catyaclysm and the protection vs. Massacre motivates playing 4.


Works well with Cat and Dust Bowl, so you should run them if you run any of those. As to "what happened," a lot of people dropped Cataclysm from their sideboards, which in turn led to dropping Flagstones from the maindeck.

[southfloridamagic]

even though there is a good one weekly, 3 minutes from my door organized by David Winsauer and the excellent Southfloridamagic crew. And lemme tell you - it KILLS me to drive past it all-the-time!

Thanks for the love Dan, it's a pleasure to have you hang out with us!

[Svyelunite]

New episode of Legacy's Allure is posted! This time we investigate the long-time anomaly of the Tier 1 Legacy metagame. How exactly does a deck without Brainstorm hold its own so well? Join us and find out!

Webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UojckDF75-A
Podcast: https://archive.org/details/LegacysAllureDeathAndTaxesWithMarcKonig

[gfernandes]

Hello
I'm new to the deck and just finished building it. I used to play goblins. I have a few questions about interactions and decisions. Deck list below.


//Lands
2 Cavern of Souls (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Cavern+of+Souls)
1 Flagstones of Trokair (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Flagstones+of+Trokair)
3 Karakas (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Karakas)
9 Plains (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Plains)
4 Rishadan Port (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Rishadan+Port)
4 Wasteland (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Wasteland)

//Spells
1 Batterskull (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Batterskull)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Sword+of+Fire+and+Ice)
4 Swords to Plowshares (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Swords+to+Plowshares)
1 Umezawa's Jitte (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Umezawa%27s+Jitte)
4 Æther Vial (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=%C6ther+Vial)

//Creatures
4 Flickerwisp (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Flickerwisp)
1 Mangara of Corondor (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Mangara+of+Corondor)
2 Mirran Crusader (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Mirran+Crusader)
4 Mother of Runes (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Mother+of+Runes)
3 Phyrexian Revoker (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Phyrexian+Revoker)
2 Serra Avenger (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Serra+Avenger)
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Spirit+of+the+Labyrinth)
4 Stoneforge Mystic (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Stoneforge+Mystic)
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Thalia%2C+Guardian+of+Thraben)

//Sideboard
1 Ratchet Bomb (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Ratchet+Bomb)
1 Cataclysm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Cataclysm)
2 Enlightened Tutor (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Enlightened+Tutor)
2 Rest in Peace (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Rest+in+Peace)
2 Council's Judgment (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Council%27s+Judgment)
2 Ethersworn Canonist (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Ethersworn+Canonist)
1 Pithing Needle (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Pithing+Needle)
1 Ghostly Prison (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Ghostly+Prison)
1 Disenchant (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Disenchant)
1 Sunlance (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Sunlance)
1 Manriki-Gusari (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=pt&card=Manriki-Gusari)



I have seen some matches of death and taxes players and noticed that when players have both Thalia and Stoneforge in hand, some decide to play 2nd turn Thalia and some Stoneforge. My question is in which matchups you should play Thalia or Stoneforge if you have both in hand at second turn?

I have learned a lot with the discussions in this forum. Thanks for the input.